


Old Flame

by x_x



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Drugs, Gen, M/M, Toxic Relationship, everyone loves on Lupin bc i play hardcore favorites
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:25:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9488939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_x/pseuds/x_x
Summary: A former partner drops in unexpectedly, and Lupin finds himself confronted with a past he'd assumed was long burned out.





	1. Cinder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cin·der  
> /ˈsindər/  
> _a small piece of partly burned coal or wood that has stopped giving off flames but still has combustible matter in it.

 

He should've thought it weird that he was having trouble speaking. But then, he was also having trouble keeping his thoughts organized, much less retaining enough to process anything else happening to him.

 

Everything took a harsh swirl, culminating to the agitated look on Fujiko's face as she turned towards him and called his name, to the champagne glass in his hand slipping from his fingers and stolen away by the cosmos, to the painted ceiling upheld by grand wood-sculpted rafters, dark oak and burgundy hues apropos to only the finest and most patrician of tastes….

 

Something in his mind stirred then, a memory overturned-- the same feeling one got after stepping on a piece of paper, having it stick to their foot, and upon inspection, seeing it turn out to be something they'd forgotten all about. Except the piece of paper was a face, gleaming blue eyes framed by waving blonde hair; instead of finding it on his foot, it was upon his mouth...soft lips then trailing over the rest of his exposed skin. And instead of the amused delight one might feel upon rediscovering an old paper-projected recollection, Lupin felt like stones were forming in his gut, weighing him down, sinking him deep and dark, with the blue eyes above and slowly willing the fight out of him, even as he begun to flail.

 

The finished image was whisking together before him, glittery particles churning around him and arranging themselves around the ghost touches that manifested in phantom trails running along his skin. He pushed and kicked in panic, only to find his blows were merely phasing through. He screamed, but there was no sound to show for it. His frantic struggle was to no avail. He was being enveloped, arms held fast around him, whispers breathing into his ear, a long-gone glance glinting like an evening skyline, blotting out his tears, suffocating him-- a promise reemerging as the very person he'd only expect to find upon reaching Hell.

 

_"I will always love you."_

 

The bullet slammed home

 

just before he opened his eyes.

 

Lupin jerked upright with a gasp, his suit clinging to the cold sweat he'd worked up in his sleep. Newfound context set in quickly, mercifully flushing out any delusion he'd had of where he thought he was, what he thought was happening.

 

It still didn't stop his hand from seeking the false burst of pain in his back, didn't stop him from expecting blood when he knew full well there wouldn't be any, that there hadn't been for years. After waking up from that old dream, he always needed a few moments before his heart and mind stopped locking up. Needed to ground himself in his surroundings before he felt like he could breathe right again.

 

"Lupin," Goemon's voice came from in front of him. The passenger seat. "Have you awoken?"

 

He took in the sound of the fiat's familiar hum as it cruised. His hand found the seatbelt buckle, the strap snug against his hips. Wind was whipping in from the open driver's side window, brushing out fly-away cigarette embers. It was dark, save for the flow of headlights beyond the rounded hood shape of the fiat. They must've gotten out of the busy part of the city and into some backroads, since there wasn't any sound of other traffic around them. Or police sirens. Always a good sign, the lack of police sirens.

 

His thoughts still felt murky and sluggish, like they were being clogged up. He was lightheaded, too. Weird. Waking up like he had should've made him alert, what with all the adrenaline. His heart was still palpitating, too.

 

"More or less. Still drowsy for some reason. Ugh." Lupin shook his head in an attempt to wring out the trance overtaking his responsiveness. But no dice. He felt like he'd been--

 

Oh.

 

Well, that explained why Jigen was being so quiet. He always got surly whenever a job involving Fujiko went pear-shaped.

 

Last Lupin remembered, he'd been making a toast with her in the hotel room, celebrating a job gone well. And then-- _maybe_ he'd sat down. Or laid down. Or fell down. Completely knocked out by whatever Fujiko had gone and spiked his drink with.

 

And that was an odd detail in itself. There was no gain in a betrayal for this job. That, or Lupin's reasoning was still too bogged down to make sense of it. Maybe that was why he couldn't find any humor in a situation he'd made light of time and time again before. It'd also explain the anxiety gnawing at the forefront of his mind, as if something had gone terribly wrong after all, and he simply hadn't pinpointed _what_ yet. Again, waking up from _that_ dream likely wasn't helping him steady the flurry of sensation overwhelming him at the moment.

 

He really had to get sorted, figure out which of his thoughts were perception, and separate those from what was concrete.

 

Jigen tossed his smoking stub out, rolling up the window and encompassing them in vacuumed stillness.

 

"You were gagging," Jigen said then, voice livid.

 

Lupin blinked slowly at him via the rearview mirror, again burdened with an indisputable lag as he switched gears, moving from his own thoughts to trying to decipher Jigen's.

 

Jigen's jaw was tensely set. At Lupin's silence, he finally elaborated. "That vile bitch left you lying on your back. You were drowning in your own drool. If me 'n' Goemon hadn't shown up when we did…."

 

 _Is that all?_ Lupin wanted to laugh with relief. He'd been prepared for the worst, expected there to have been something more of a development to set Jigen off like this. It was typical of Jigen to use any mild annoyance to loudly gripe at whomever was nearby (actually, Lupin theorized it was simply his way of showing affection), but he only ever spoke quiet and slow like this when  _really_ pissed. And being found near death wasn't exactly an extreme circumstance in their line of work, especially not so in Lupin's case. More likely, the stress of having to play getaway driver was eating at the gunman.

 

"We'll go after her, and steal back the take," Lupin promised. After a beat, he added, "If you guys are in."

 

"You-- I didn't-- That's not the _goddamn point_!" Jigen hollered, stunning the thief with his volume. "Are you fucking with me right now, or do you legitimately think--"

 

"Jigen," Goemon said, raising his hand to indicate for the other to hush.

 

"Yeah, _you_ talk to him, because I swear I'm about to ram this car into the mountainside if he keeps up with his bullshit…," Jigen trailed off in a grumble as Goemon raised his hand again.

 

"Lupin, what was the take?" Goemon asked then.

 

Shit. That samurai was too sharp sometimes. Lupin wracked his mind for anything to fill the lapse in detail. A job he and Fujiko had agreed to team up for, he sent out the calling card to make a party of it…. What the heck had he written on the card again? He tried to derail Goemon. "Fujiko made off with it, right? When I was unconscious."

 

"Yes. And _what was it_?"

 

Lupin fell at a loss. When Jigen glanced back at him in the rearview, Lupin quickly averted his gaze, embarrassed. The gunman's expression softened at least, but Lupin knew it would only make the reaming worse later, after they cleaned up his mess, after the drug was completely flushed from his system. Once he was completely coherent, Jigen would _really_ give him hell. Lupin had been hoping to get that part over with _while_ under the influence.

 

"We are taking a wide roundabout via the northwestern side of the city," Goemon proceeded, having made his point about Lupin's current state of mind. "Fujiko fled eastward, but is still within the area, so our plan was to take alleys in the outskirts of the grid district while tracking her."

 

"I tagged her car when I caught sight of her hightailing it without you," Jigen explained. Then, the anger back in his voice, he said, "I just happened to be out on the street through pure chance. If you weren't the luckiest son of a bitch alive, you'd probably still be in that hotel room."

 

Dark...? Lupin forced himself to blink, noting a subtle abruptness in how the car had shifted farther along the street than it had been only a second ago. Had he just blacked out? Suddenly, he felt utterly zapped of strength. His reaction time.... It was growing more and more delayed. It struck him then the possibility that he  _had_ woken up alert, and now the drug in his system retaking its hold, reducing him back to slush. Despite this, he reached forward to place one hand on each of the two men's shoulders, taking a couple tries before his wobbly hands reached their intended spots. And he was surprised to find upon touch that Goemon's shoulder was as tense as Jigen's.

 

"Thanks," Lupin told them both, with as much sincerity as he could gather. "For bailing me out and all."

 

At that, they seemed to relax at least.

 

"Might as well try to nap the rest of that narco off," Jigen said gruffly. "We'll wake you when we're close."

 

Lupin opened his mouth to protest, but the window was being reopened already, more than likely because Jigen wanted to smoke some more. Wind flooded the car compartment with sound, further signaling that the conversation had come to a close, if the resolve from the other two men hadn't already made it apparent. Despite his unease, Lupin found himself reclining into the backseat, as much as he tried to will himself to sit up. They were moving at an easy, stealth pace through dim side-streets, each turn a pleasant rocking motion and only adding to the lull of the drug, tugging Lupin further from clarity. The windchill was making his eyes feel heavier, and the inactivity of his partners left him with no distraction to focus on.

 

The long-closed wound in his back ached dully though, and that was reminder enough of what awaited him if he submit to his dreams so soon. But as it stood, he needed the rest. Lupin allowed all tension to fully leave his limbs, compromising by forcing his eyes to keep open.

 

So long as he didn't sleep.


	2. Stoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stoke  
> /stōk/  
> _ add coal or other solid fuel to (a fire, furnace, or boiler).  
> _ encourage or incite (a strong emotion or tendency).

They raced over rooftops, footfall uneven and clumsy, slipping against the tilings. Whimsical and glib and faux-highbrow, it was like a scene from one of those teen drama films, rallying the younger generation to not let their life fly past: Two juveniles on the lam, brazen in the cloak of night, cackling into open air, buzzing on legendary wine. And then, even "legendary" was more flair than factual; it was really just a cask aged for centuries, stored in a safe by some affluent family, brought out that sole night for the death anniversary of their noble great-great-and-so-on-and-so-forth foreparent. More legendary it might still become, having several bottles liberated by a pair of adolescent thieves who left two dead security groundsmen in their wake.

 

The deaths weren't part of the plan. _None_ of the deaths of late were, and more often Lupin found himself counter-planning contingencies to a potential body count, like he had for this job. But for this job, he hadn't counted on the security hires themselves planning to sneak into the locked storage for their own taste of the wine, and Iosif didn't... ( _"Iosif, WAIT--" BLAM! BLAM!_ ) ...like to leave things to chance. And it was becoming a problem, among other problems, that made Lupin feel like he were spinning plates while unicycling on a tightrope over a fire pit most days, but tonight...Iosif was _laughing_.

 

Tonight, Lupin the Third-- sixteen and inebriated and so tired and all too easily taken by the thrill-- had very few cohesive thoughts in this moment. There was the hand clasped in perfect fit to his own, the sound of someone else's unbridled voice harmonizing with his own in breathless laughter, and that golden glow of accomplishment in his chest because he hadn't seen Iosif this happy in _weeks_. He had to remember to make a note, of everything that went right, or maybe just everything that had happened leading up to this moment, because somewhere herein was a key to that happiness. And if Lupin could find it, maybe...Iosif could be less miserable. And things could be better again. He just needed to--

 

 Was Iosif calling for him? Why did he sound so distant?

 

 "Lupin...Lupin...."  _Hey, that's not what you call me…._

 

But then, they were already back in their safehouse. An abandoned building, pretty stereotypical of ne'er-do-wells, and so worn was the half-collapsed structure that the only way into their repurposed unit was through a partly boarded up window that they swung into from the roof. The ceiling leaked, and the homeless squatting in the floors below got loud sometimes, but it was private, closed off. Lupin already missed it, but they'd already overstayed themselves, having gotten the forefather's death anniversary wrong by a month (November the 10th, not October the 11th, but who the hell used month-day in that order outside the States?), and Iosif hadn't let the mistake slide easy…. But they had the take now. Iosif was fine now. Better than fine.

 

His face was bright with joy and he hummed as he pulled Lupin close to him, placing his set of wine bottles onto the rotted nightstand with something of a clang.

 

Lupin reached over to put his own pair beside them, _thought_ he'd set them down right, only to freeze as he heard the horrible shatter of one falling to the floor. His eyes caught on the glass shards-- the look of the open, jagged ends of the bottle remains, like open jaws, the neck serving as a too-convenient handle for Iosif's hand-- before darting to the window. He wouldn't be able to make it, what with how Iosif already had a hold on him.

 

But the latter hardly seemed to notice his panic, still humming into Lupin's ear, and the sound did wonders in soothing down Lupin's dread. Iosif felt warm and sure, and Lupin just melted against him.

 

 " _Senka_." That rich voice stroked his face with a heated breath as they swayed together. " _You're drooping_."

 

Because his feet weren't working. Lupin indulged avidly, eagerly pushing away his brief state of alarm, dipping his face into the other man's neck with a giggle. How much had he drank?

 

Wait. How much had he drank?

 

Blonde hair tickled his forehead. A nose bumped tenderly with his. His head was swimming, and his toes only dragged against the rotting floorboards as the body leading their parody of a waltz continued to spin them languidly.

 

" _Shall we go to bed?_ " Iosif whispered.

 

" _Iosif_ ," he murmured, too gone to even panic, letting his lips brush wetly over the exposed skin as he sagged. " _What did you do?_ "

 

"Hey, man, come on."

 

" _You haven't let me touch you in daaays now, Senka. Enjoy it._ "

 

" _You...the wine…!"_

 

"Lupin…quit messing around."

 

The use of his surname jarred him, and Lupin found himself blinking against a dark beard. Jigen's neck was flush with warmth, making it difficult to want to pull away. Jigen took the initiative on that move, unfortunately, and Lupin looked around dumbly to piece together what was happening.

 

"I was just undoing your seatbelt," Jigen told him quickly. It was as if he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. His gaze darted around the car, ultimately avoiding Lupin's open stare. "We've been stopped for a while, but you were dozing pretty deep."

 

"I…. Where is this?" If he'd been dreaming, why did he smell like alcohol?

 

_Champagne, right-- not wine. Oh. Fujiko…._

 

Jigen sighed, graveled and low in his throat. Probably still mad. "That woman's car is about five blocks away, but Goemon found the tracker in one of the buildings here. So she knows we're onto her. Best bet is to wait to see if she comes back."

 

Lupin wanted to make the argument that she'd possibly left an intended trail to keep them diverted off her real location, but seeing as this was all they had to go off, and how his attention was still torn between now and what happened over a decade past…. Keeping it simple would be best. _Sometimes--_

 

 _\--no move is the best move._ The words were cooed to him a honeyed voice that stuck pins and needles up Lupin's spine. Fingers around his throat, crushing.

 

"Was that Russian earlier?" Jigen asked, ending the illusion just as abruptly.

 

He'd been looking away, but his eyes jerked back to Lupin when the latter started gasping for air.

 

"I…" Lupin rubbed his neck to further dispel the choked feeling, tried to will some clarity back. Why was he so goddamn nostalgic tonight? "Kinda?"

 

Jigen frowned. "You good?"

 

It was only then Lupin realized Jigen's arm was partially supporting him, in the middle of pulling him from the backseat of the fiat. They'd been in plenty of odd, compromising positions worse than this, but the proximity of the last dredged memory cast a layer of intimacy over how Jigen was holding him, and made Lupin hyperaware from the contact.

 

Unable to express himself, Lupin gestured Jigen to move so he could try out his legs on his own. He got as far as pushing himself sideways to let his feet drop out of the car onto dirt before he realized he didn't have enough coordination to trust them to hold his full weight. Dammit….

 

Cool knuckles rested against his forehead, and Lupin instinctively leaned against the touch with a sigh. It was worlds away from the heat of Jigen's skin, but not at all unpleasant.

 

"This isn't normal," Jigen said. "He's way too out of it."

 

At first there was no response, just the hand pressing a full palm along Lupin's temple. Then, Goemon's voice came, slow and tense. "Would it be outside expectation for that woman to…use a stronger drug?"

 

"…I will fucking kill her."

 

"No one's killing anyone," Lupin declared, trying to sound steadier than he felt. "I'll figure it out."

 

Jigen gave a harsh scoff. "Figure out how to walk first."

 

Before Lupin could retort, Jigen heaved him up, hinging most of Lupin's weight over his shoulder. Goemon remained close to Lupin's other side, one hand hovering over zantetsu's hilt as he eyed their surroundings. That was about as far as Lupin's awareness could manage to perceive. Everything else remained a patchwork mess of light and shadow, like a checkerboard except painted over so that most of the squares were black.

 

"Mind the curb," Jigen muttered to him, but practically hoisted him upward on his own anyway.

 

They were shuffling into a dimly lit alleyway now. Street lamp illumination on the next street over cut an orange rectangle in the gap between two buildings. Lupin had the sudden urge to squint up at the rooftops in passing-- _ha_ , like he could spot anything at that distance--

 

Movement. By that chimney?

 

He blinked, and it was all still again. But his ears rang with warning. _No, that's just bloodrush. Stop freaking out over everything._

 

_Over nothing._

 

Jigen gave him an impatient tug, noticing his lag, and Lupin clumsily hopped back into pace with him. At first, it seemed like Jigen would question him on it, but he ignored his stare pointedly enough for the gunman to give up early.

 

Lupin shut his eyes to keep the muddled visuals from further convoluting his thoughts. _Focus._

 

Even for Fujiko, a betrayal this time around didn't make any sense. Fujiko didn't do anything by whim, it had to prove beneficial to her somehow. But what was beneficial about drugging him after a job? He did the job for the thrill and to win her good favor, she did it for the take; they'd already agreed on that. It hadn't even been a monumental treasure, just a small-scale stint for shits and giggles because work had been slow and they hadn't seen each other for a while….

 

_…What was the take again?_

 

And why the hell would she use a literal roofie to put him under when a sleeping sedative had always worked for her in the past? Was she working for someone, or had she been threatened somehow?

 

_And what was the take._

 

Lupin sighed, coming up blank as the thought slipped clear of him again. Hell of a mental block to drill through before he could fathom any of it. Puzzles and riddles were supposed to be his metier; it was why he loved dissecting security deficiencies. Coming up blank was the job he left to the poor, arrogant shmucks he robbed blind. He needed answers. "I gotta see her…. Gotta talk to her."

 

Jigen made a sound that may have been a laugh, or may have been a growl. "Yeah. Don't you always."

 

There he went, getting mad again. Great. Lupin would need to talk to him, too. Get this all straightened out. If he could just _think_.

 

"If he hasn't reached a point where what she's done is beyond exchange of word, then he is beyond our help," Goemon commented somewhere ahead.

 

_Goemon, not you too…._

 

Lupin wanted to tell them not to double-team him when he lacked the coherence to defend himself, but before he could, Jigen was adjusting their posture, moving a step in front of him, like he was shielding him. He had his gun out. And ahead of them, Goemon's right hand had just barely cracked zentetsu from its sheath. The samurai's left hand was slowly pushing open a door.

 

All three of them stopped breathing when the hinges creaked, declaring their presence.

 

" _Jesus_!" Fujiko hissed from the darkness of the room a moment later, as the door swung open fully.

 

By that point, zentetsu had been fully drawn, and Jigen had outstretched his magnum past the threshold. But they all partook in the collective relief of being among friendlies. A light switch flipped, and it turned out Fujiko had been primed with her browning as well.

 

"I see no one thought to call first," she quipped as they filed in. "Or knock. Or, you know, give any sort of tell at all to keep us from aiming loaded firearms at each other."

 

The room had a homey vintage-esque look, glossed up with furnished with barebones modern amenities as to not scare away tourists. Likely a well-sought unit for a traveling college student. With the right outfit and hair, Fujiko could still manage to pass for one if she needed to; the woman was truly blessed.

 

"Yeah, must be real rough dealing with surprises," Jigen retorted, grinding subtext between his teeth.

 

He all but dragged Lupin over to the twin bed at the far corner, where the thief was unceremoniously dumped with a grunt. It took all the thief's strength to not simply flop onto his side and call it a night. Instead he settled for shutting his eyes, resting his face in his hands, elbows propped on his knees. Something to steady how the world swayed.

 

"You weren't here when I checked this unit earlier," Goemon explained. "And we had no way to determine whether you were working with someone else."

 

"Must have missed me when I was scrubbing evidence off my car," Fujiko dismissed flippantly as she brushed past the two men. The mattress dipped where she plopped down next to Lupin. "Hey, lover."

 

"Fujicakes," Lupin greeted, cracking a smile as he turned to her.

 

Jigen loudly stomped to the opposite side of the room, lighting up a cigarette. In a quieter, but similar manner, Goemon also symbolically excused himself by sitting on the floor by the dresser and closing his eyes in focus.

 

Fujiko observed Lupin with a slight frown, placing a gentle hand against the side of his face, her skin soft and smooth in contrast to the stubble already forming from the late night. "You look like how I feel."

 

"That's such a load," Jigen grumbled from his corner.

 

"You know what a brute Zenigata can be," Fujiko responded. "He didn't let up until he realized Lupin wasn't with me, but even then I had to swap cars to finally lose his flunkies." She was taking out her own lighter and brand, and now that Lupin was seeing her closely, she did look exhausted. Normally she came out of a clean betrayal with grace and ease. She turned back to Lupin. "What the hell happened tonight anyway?"

 

A startled pause sprouted in the room.

 

"I was gonna ask you," Lupin said, forcing himself to sit up straight. This conversation warranted his full concentration. He rocked slightly, but somehow managed to hold himself upright. Fujiko eyed him a moment before passing him her lit cigarette, which he took gratefully. "I hardly remembering passing out."

 

"Yeah, after one glass of champagne," Fujiko supplied, a twitch of her eyebrow giving away her agitation. She waited for Lupin to get in all of two hits before reclaiming her fag. "Before I could even react to that, Zenigata was on a megaphone outside. Someone had to have fed them intel about us. Unless you've made a new habit of leaving hideaway locations on your call cards."

 

"Then the spiked beverage was not your doing?" Goemon asked, attention on them now.

 

"You're kidding me, right? All it did was screw me over and nearly cost me the take. I was the one who led the feds away and bought your sorry asses time! I even drove by that pub to tip off Jigen." She took a long drag, blowing the smoke in the direction of the two other men. "I was wondering why you two were being extra pissy towards me…."

 

"Forgive our initial suspicions. But if you were drinking with Lupin, you shouldn't have been able to escape the way you had."

 

"Please. Hanging around high-profile figures has taught me to always wait for someone else to sample a food item first. So no, I didn't have a sip. Is the interrogation finished?"

 

"Quit being catty; you don't exactly have the best track record," Jigen retorted, stubbing out his finished cigarette. "But hey sure, thanks for _not_ being the one to drug him this _one_ time."

 

"You're welcome."

 

"So, are we all on the same page with assuming that whoever did is the same shmucks who sent your hotel room number to the feds?"

 

"That begs the further question of who, as well as their motive," Goemon said.

 

Distantly, Lupin _felt_ more than visually registered Fujiko take his face in her hands again, turning him towards her. "Oh, but my poor Lupin…."

 

He knew he was looking her right in the face, but he might as well have been seeing her from the opposite end of a fogged glass. But even through the affection, he could feel her actual concern as well-- knew the gentle tug of her thumb at his bottom eyelid was not incidental, as things rarely were with her-- and it made him smile a little. She simply sighed at him, running her palm along his jaw and watching him lean into it.

 

Lupin could rub against that touch like a cat if he had better coordination. "Mm. That's nice."

 

"Yeah, he's been loopy like that all night," Jigen said, voice closer now. "Definitely something other than a sleeping pill."

 

"…Oh," said Fujiko.

 

"Are you familiar with the effects?" Goemon asked. "Or the lethality of the drug?"

 

"He won't die, it's just…associated with a certain context," Fujiko answered, slowly letting Lupin go. "And has a certain reputation."

 

"Rohypnol," Lupin said then. He felt like he'd been plunged into a cold, lightless bath, locked away to drown. The room fell away, pain erupted in his back, the sensation turned into hands moving over him, fingers twisting into him, invading him. Translucent blue eyes, pale blonde hair, gentle soft lips and devilish swirl of tongue with the abrupt sting of teeth. Sixteen, jumping over the gaps between rooftops, stolen wine sloshing in his belly, night air and rotted wood; thirty-one, spilled champagne on carpet, dark oaken rafters along the ceiling;

sprawled on his back.

 

_"Iosif, what did you do?"_

 

"How long did it take you guys to get to the hotel?" Fujiko's voice was thin. Brittle. Angry in a way Lupin couldn't remember her having ever been before. "What was he like when you found him?"

 

It seemed to take Goemon and Jigen a bit longer to know what she was really asking.

 

"He was out cold," Jigen finally said, voice hoarse. "It took a while-- both of us were on foot. But all his clothes were still on when we got there…."

 

Fujiko held a stoney gaze. "When I left, he was just in his boxers."

 

" _You haven't let me touch you in daaays now, Senka. Enjoy it._ "


	3. Flare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flare  
> fler/  
> _a sudden brief burst of bright flame or light.  
> _a sudden burst of intense emotion.  
> _producing a bright flame, used especially as a signal or marker.

"They don't say World's Most _Wanted_ for nothing."

 

Good joke, he'd thought. Bad timing, he concluded when the other three only grimaced. Not the feedback he'd been going for, but at least better than having to watch them mentally grapple with what had happened in the hotel room a minute longer. Any icebreaker would've been a good one.

 

At the very least, it broke them from the stupor. Jigen began packing his cigarettes against the dresser as if some kind of noise would help do away with the air of disquiet-- _whap, whap, whap_. In similar fashion, Fujiko occupied herself by grinding her spent filter into the floor with her heel as she recomposed herself. Goemon seemed to retreat into himself, or at least lend the appearance that he was. They were a good team, Lupin knew, and that fact squeezed his heart each time it was reiterated. A solid team.

 

"I don't understand," Goemon spoke up then, the sound wound tight as he neared the bed. "Admittedly, I don't understand much about you, Lupin, but…how do you remain unperturbed?"

 

"You want to wait until he's not doped out of his mind?" Fujiko asked sharply.

 

"No, I'm with Goemon," Jigen said, shortly alert. "He's taking this awfully well."

 

"Yeah, weird, it's almost like he's _doped out of his mind_."

 

"He knows something. Don't you?" Jigen's voice went cold, grinding out his next words. "Lupin, I want a name."

 

"We are _not_ doing this right now!" Fujiko tilted into Lupin, draping an arm around his lower back as she scaled down her volume. "It's been an ordeal. Let's just call it a night, sort this all out in the morning…."

 

She might as well have offered heaven; that was how good that sounded. Between that and the vertigo, he was hard-pressed to close his eyes, lay down, save all his problems for his future self to deal with. Come back to it fresh the next day, as fresh as he could be anyway to a problem that'd been left rotting on the back shelf for over a decade-- how horrible had it gotten since he last opened that jar?

 

A sharp twinge in his head halted his thoughts, and the room swung. He shut his eyes, willing down the need to vomit. _Alright, save the poetics for later…._

 

"I second a postponement," he heard Goemon say.

 

"He could give us a friggin' _name_ if he wanted to," Jigen insisted, but his words held less force now.

 

"Then let's go with 'he doesn't want to'." Fujiko huffed. "In other words, you can lay off already."

 

Only when he finally felt the swaying subside did Lupin dare open his eyes again. He was on the verge of passing out again, could feel his consciousness slipping off, like a dimming dial in his head was twisting steadily lower. _Not yet._ Lupin clenched his jaw, swallowed hard-- any sensation or fidget to keep himself aware.

 

He had to be certain first. If it were really Iosif…then, at the very least, it wouldn't have been some stranger who'd been all over him. (And later, he might be able to blame the drug, at least to the others. But to himself, he knew it was testament to how messed up he really was, having a preference for who'd just…. ( _Not now, Lupin. Introspect when sober._ )) He just had to ask for the--

 

Jigen let out a frustrated sigh before Lupin could gather the words. "Alright, fine. Where's my tracker anyway? Those things are expensive."

 

After a moment of quiet, Fujiko made a noise of annoyed discomfort. "What are you looking at me for?"

 

"You mentioned you'd switched vehicles…," Goemon reminded her, voice trailing off as he slowly met Jigen's gaze.

 

"…So?" Lupin felt Fujiko's hands go slack as she began catching up with the other two. "You tagged the shelby. Oh, my god--"

 

"You were not aware of the tag." Goemon's voice was just as faint.

 

"No, I just…. I just thought you found me some other way."

 

"Some other--? We didn't exactly have a whole lot to work with!" Jigen cursed under his breath, bumping the dresser against the wall as he pushed off it. "I'm bringing the fiat around. Be ready to move him." His scowl loosened slightly as his gaze fell onto Lupin, but then he was already heading for the door.

 

"I shall accompany you, Jigen." In a grand billow of sleeves and hakama, Goemon was following the gunman. "We have been tugged too far along by another's strings to remain careless with our consequent decisions."

 

"No. Lupin can't even walk, let alone--"

 

"I'll take care of Lupin," Fujiko said impatiently. "You two go."

 

"Y _ou'll_ take care…?" The words sounded like Jigen had gargled them before spitting them out.

 

Lupin was missing a cue…. A whole bunch of cues, sure. Too many cues tonight moreover. But some cue had happened in that single moment that was too far over his head for him to really grasp. Because there were Fujiko and Jigen, staring each other down-- there was Fujiko, who had gone rigid-- and there was Goemon, who had _definitely_ repositioned himself so that he was an agitated half-step into obstructing their meeting glares.

 

"You wanna say something, Jigen?" Fujiko crooned, the sound like pure-grade honey poured over rusted nails.

 

Another heavy second ticked by, and then Jigen was drawing his magnum from the back of his trousers. Fujiko's breath halted-- but then Jigen was tearing his gaze away, placing his free hand over the door handle. Goemon bent low, zantetsu clinking as his hands fastened along the crease separating the hilt from the scabbard. The gunman opened the door slowly, thoroughly scanning the alleyway.

 

"I want to say a _lot_ of things," Jigen said flatly, before slipping through the threshold and into the dark.

 

"Fujiko," Goemon addressed, sounding worn. "Please keep yourselves distant from the windows."

 

"You can count on me," Fujiko replied. It came out startlingly like a plea.

 

"Of course."

 

The door shut behind him, and they only heard the first footfall he took after Jigen before silence filled the room. Fujiko let drew in a shaky breath, eyes stuck on the closed door, lips stuck in a too-sullen sulk. It didn't suit her.

 

Jigen and Goemon were always on him about letting Fujiko eclipse his perception-- and the pavlovian result was their nagging pecking at the back of his mind whenever he was doing just that, but. Lupin was a people-pleaser. And Fujiko was the kind of girl who was always receptive to some form of pleasing.

 

"Alone at last," Lupin said, purposefully slumping his full weight on her even as his nausea spiked at the motion.

 

It was worth the small giggle he won out of her, at the firm push she gave to keep him from toppling both of them to the mattress.

 

"You, monsieur, are particularly facetious tonight," she muttered, not unfondly. She allowed him to settle his head in the crook of her neck and shoulder, curling both her arms around his waist and folding her hands together at his hip. "You're…no matter what…."

 

Lupin closed his eyes against her skin. He could feel her pulsepoint upon his brow. She was wearing the perfume he'd given to her for Christmas, the one that came in the pink and gold bottle and had faint floral notes. When she didn't continue, he nudged his nose at her. "Hm?"

 

He heard her swallow uncomfortably, and she rested her head atop his, pulling him snug against her. "Never mind. It's nothing."

 

There was something else. Wasn't there?

 

Something he needed to be thinking about….

 

But with Fujiko wrapped around him like this, he couldn't find it all too important. Huh, maybe Jigen and Goemon had a point…?

 

"What are they waiting for?"

 

The whisper made him blink his eyes open. Who? Jigen and Goemon? One of Fujiko's hands came up to cradle Lupin's face and she turned her head slightly so that her lips brushed his temple.

 

"You don't have to talk about it. But…there's a reason they haven't done anything yet, right?"

 

The stone-weight in Lupin's chest returned. Not they. _Him_.

 

Lupin didn't have much time. Jigen and Goemon were both gone by good fortune. Next was Fujiko.

 

Now was the chance.

 

"Hey, Fujicakes?" He tried to sound unbothered, light-hearted.

 

She thumbed his cheek. "Darling?"

 

"What was the take?" Like that. Like it wasn't important-- a non-issue.

 

"You don't remember? …Any of it?"

 

"Short-term memory's shot, that's all. It'll come back." Lupin fought the urge to grimace. _It'll all come back._

 

"It's in the dresser. I can get it."

 

He hadn't realized how much he'd been leaning on her until she had to prop him somewhat upright as she stood, lingering patiently until he could hold himself up-- and even then, he bowed heavily into the space between his knees.

 

"You should lie down," she breathed into his ear.

 

Lupin mustered his best smile, which was likely as sorry an attempt as it felt to drag it across his face. "Only if you lie with me."

 

"Only if you can get _up_." Even beneath the sexual overlay, concern pressed forward. She ran a final caress along his jawline before leaving his side, walking somewhat languidly towards the dresser. "I'm not interested in forgetful men, by the way. You really can't remember what we stole? Together? For our special night? It's silver, and blue… _very_ expensive…would look amazing on me…. Oh, and it goes by the name of 'Duetlichkeit Halber'."

 

"Dooey," Lupin said as soon as it came to mind.

 

"I told you not to call it that," Fujiko admonished, yet at the same time she seemed relieved, and a bit more relaxed. She opened the top drawer.

 

He remembered now. A Valentines Day gift for Fujiko. A Valentines Day heist, just the two of them. She'd facetimed him, pouted cutely, fluttered her eyelashes, and made the special request of an old, heavily guarded world war two relic preserved in Chile from the days of German asylum. It had startled Lupin, brought an entirely different piece of jewelry to mind, made him hesitate, but he hadn't found any other reason to refuse her.

 

He probably should have.

 

His calling cards always made rounds in the tabloids; that's what they were there for. But this target…. It was too close to--Lupin felt the swell of queasiness at the back of his throat too late. He fell forward onto hardwood, barely able to catch himself with his hands as he retched foam and bile. Fujiko was shouting his name, had dropped beside him, a hand upon his back. The other was holding a small velvet sack….

 

He gagged again, mouth agape with strain as his stomach twisted in on itself. He leaned heavily against the bed, clutching his heaving torso and shaking, bewildered as he took in the sudden doubling of his vision.

 

"Good, that's it," Fujiko was murmuring into his ear, but there was a detectable panic beneath the sterilized calm. "Just get all the bad stuff out."

 

"...fine," Lupin tried to assure her. "I'm fine."

 

But they both froze at the rapid-pace popping of burst fire rounds coming from outside, the clanging of metalwork denting under stress. And then, a blare of noise and light, and debris clattering-- the tell-tale sound effect of a car exploding.

 

There was maybe half a stunned moment of quiet, and then the buildings around them began breaking out with noise and screams. But Lupin didn't dare breathe again until he heard the burst fire continue its succession. Fujiko's eyes were still wide and staring, and Lupin haphazardly groped for her hand to snap her out of it.

 

"You parked nearby, right? I doubt the fiat survived that." Lupin wondered if he accidentally threw his voice from how distant it sounded….

 

She turned her frightened gaze to him. "Jigen and Goemon--"

 

He grabbed both her arms firmly. His vision was rotten with lights and spots and doubles, even Fujiko seemed to wobble into two translucent versions of herself, and he forced himself to focus on a midpoint. "They're fine! Otherwise he would've stopped shooting. He's keeping 'em pinned down."

 

"'He'." That seemed to shake her back and her stare turned sharp.

 

"Listen…you have to _run_. Get the car, get Jigen and Goemon, and then swing around to pick me up--"

 

"Screw that! I'm not leaving you alone a--" She seemed to choke on whatever she would've said next, bringing a hand over her mouth.

 

"Fujiko. _Baby_. It's the best plan we've got right now."

 

Her lips quivered and she looked positively enraged with him as tears began falling. Lupin felt his resolve crack.

 

_No, Fujicakes, please not that, not right now--_

 

"Tonight's beyond ruined, so you owe me--" she was sobbing, "--s-so you have to make it up to me somehow, you got that?"

 

Fujiko-speak for "stay alive", and not all the drugs clogging up his system could keep Lupin from grinning as he knocked his head against hers in a rush of clumsy affection. It was enough to hold her attention elsewhere as his hand slipped down and grabbed the velvet loot sack she hadn't realized she'd let go off. "For you, anything."

 

She bumped back against him briefly, and then with a final sniffle, she was pushing herself up off the ground, away from him. She stumbled on her way to the door, but put on a brave face as she lingered in the entryway. To assure her, he unholstered his walther, clicked the safety off so she could see. It seemed to be enough. She nodded at him, and then took her exit.

 

Once she was gone, Lupin all but collapsed entirely, curling feebly on his side as he flipped the velvet sack and hurriedly dumped the contents. He blinked rapidly to try and set his vision straight to see Jigen's tracker fall out and roll until it caught onto a crease between floorboards. Another firm shake of the sack and out dropped not a bracelet-- no Dooey to be found-- but a necklace. _The_ necklace.

 

 _Blaue Blume._ Lupin's fingers trembled around the silver chainlinks.

 

There was his answer. It had to have been his imagination-- how warm it was in his hands, a displaced ache crawling over his naked throat.

 

Sirens outside. He was running out of time. As if to further prompt him, he heard the burst fire outside pause briefly.

 

At first, he prayed it was a reload rather than a confirmed target hit, but then-- again his imagination because instincts couldn't possibly work like this-- Lupin _sensed_ the round of fire before even hearing the clap of discharge, or the whistle trailing in its wake as it sailed through air. This one came from an entirely different gun. He knew the sound anywhere: a makarov pistol. Familiar as a snow-pale face, square jaw, thin arched nose, _blue eyes_ \-- clear and distinct to him as someone calling out 'It's me'.

 

Then the assault fire resumed. The onslaught of sensory recall ceased, but Lupin's body was already moving on its own. Dragging across the floor, squeezing the necklace and Jigen's tracker in one hand, squeezing his walther in the other. Slamming his weight into the wall to force his legs underneath him, and still they threatened to fold with each step. He pried the door open. A few people ran frantically past without paying him any mind, having been able to escape the fiery war-like scene at the mouth of the alleyway. But Lupin was squinting upward at the upper levels, trying to catch a glimpse.

 

The action was happening too far away. Still, if he'd been able to catch ear of the marakov, then surely…

 

Everything was still a blur, his stance wavered, but he aimed his walther and his arm shot straight-- 'It's _me_ '-- just before his legs gave out again and he fell backwards onto the building side.

 

Just like that, the gun hail stopped, and the lack of which hit him in a cold rush of foreboding.

 

 _Move it, Lupin._ But he was wheezing-- he'd covered, what, maybe seven feet and fired one shot? Yet it might as well have been a marathon. _C'mon, c'mon_. But it was as if the world had been flipped, and any step would fling him out of balance, into orbit, into oblivion. He looked down, focused on the cobble stones, on how his feet pushed and balanced against them-- clenched his jaw. _GO._

 

He flung himself into motion, diving deeper into the alleyway. It felt more like he was catching consecutive falls with his feet, dribbling his center of gravity against the buildings to keep himself upright. He'd dropped Jigen's tracker into his pocket, but the necklace he clutched like a lifeline. And if he relished the feel of it on his skin, if the weight of it in his hands calmed him just a little-- he wasn't sure if he could blame himself for old habits dying hard as long as they could carry him another step forward, and another after that.

 

Turn the corner, farther, farther still, cross the street, enter a new alley, still not far enough--

 

His lungs must've been empty because when was roughly shoved up against brickwork wall, he couldn't even cry out as his back and head hit hard slab. His sight exploded with a torrent of flashing colors and he gaped for air, arms flailing. He would never have remained upright had it not been for the weight pinning him up like a wall-mounted trophy. A leg wedged between his, keeping him from sliding down, and Lupin squirmed-- not because it was uncomfortable, but because it was entirely _too_ comfortable.

 

He was still struggling for breath, blind in a sea of light blots, barely noticing a nose bumping against his, a warm breath cast over his face--

 

\--and then there was a mouth covering his.

 

Air forced entry into his seizing lungs. The mouth left his as he began coughing on the second-hand oxygen, and it returned almost immediately, breathing more volume in his lungs, enforcing a strict rhythm to Lupin's otherwise disordered gasps. It took a third shared breath before Lupin could properly inhale on his own again.

 

"Better?" a voice murmured in his ear.

 

A voice he knew, deeper than how he knew it but still immediately recognizable. It sent a prickle down his spine, that would've had him panicking more perhaps if he weren't so dizzy, so warm and secure. His eyes could barely adjust, but he would know the face in front of his anywhere, even fifteen years later; knew those blue eyes that gleamed vividly, even in the low light; his jaw was more squared, capped with a groomed layer of handsome scruff. Iosif Kashckov had always been ghostly pale, skin and hair and choice of suit, and seemed to glow before him.

 

"Mercy. Gorgeous as ever." The mouth still near his shined wet with Lupin's saliva. It chuckled. "My Senka."

 

 _He still tastes the same,_ Lupin realized, amidst the low-- not entirely unpleasant-- buzzing sensation in his head that was muddling up the rest of his perception. _Still feels the same._

 

"Hey, say something. I went through a lot of trouble in getting my timings right this evening." Eyelashes tickled the thief's skin as he blinked, they were so close together. "Aren't you proud of me? I've gotten to be so meticulous, all thanks to a certain kid genius I grew up with."

 

How could he not be impressed? Hacking Jigen's tagged mapping. Tailing Fujiko. Swapping the jewelry. Using the tracker to lead them to her. Kashckov had orchestrated it all to a t, magician-like in how much had happened behind the allegorical curtain. Remaining out of sight until Lupin found a way to isolate himself, trusting that Lupin would know what to do and what to expect, executing each step in exact parallel without an ounce of communication-- that was the sort of innate synergy that was rare. To think that even after all this time, they could operate with one another so seamlessly.

 

All words seemed to evanesce on Lupin's tongue. Something he couldn't quite dredge up from his memory kept him from trusting his own responses. His fists tightened, and in one, he remembered the necklace.

 

He brought it up to Kashckov's chest.

 

"Ah, my keepsake found its way to you." Kashckov's smile brushed against Lupin's cheek. "Do you remember how it works? We don't have a lot of time tonight. Will you know where to go from here?"

 

He'd always known. Lupin was glad for the darkness as the sentiment sent a torrent of heat up his neck. So he shut his eyes and nodded.

 

Before he could think to do anything else, Kashckov shifted, and Lupin could feel the frission run through the other man's body before he processed the familiar sound of a magnum being cocked nearby. In a flash of moonlight on gunmetal, a muzzle-- the marakov-- came up to Lupin's jaw in response. Lupin didn't even flinch.

 

But as Jigen and Goemon stepped closer into his line of sight, their aggression was nearly palpable.

 

Lupin was relieved to see neither of them seemed injured, no legs being favored, no excessive amount of blood on their clothes. There were swiss holes bitten into the rim of Jigen's hat, and the very far trims of Goemon's robes were singed black, but none of that seemed to hamper the intensity of their approach as they trained their gazes on Kashckov. Zantetsu was already unsheathed, and Jigen's magnum had a point blank shot of Kashckov's head.

 

"You think you're quick on the trigger?" Jigen snarled.

 

"I think you wouldn't gamble your friend's life," Kashckov responded with an eyeroll. He leaned in close to Lupin. "And I thought _you_ would have learned a thing or two about choosing the right partners."

 

Kashckov's smile twitched then, and his voice hardened.

 

"Move again, samurai, and I'm blowing his brains out." His voice turned silky once more as he addressed Lupin. "Catch that entendre? You were always a nerd for turn of phrase. May want to call off your coterie, by the way. You know how I am with meeting new people."

 

"Guys-- stand down," Lupin said without thinking of phrasing. It came out in a sloppy mumble. "Everything's fine."

 

"Oh, cut the bullshit, Lupin," Jigen snapped. "Everything is _not_ fine. He blew up the goddamn car and now he's got a gun to your head. Is he the one who--?" He stopped himself short. The magnum trembled briefly.

 

"Japanese." Blue eyes flitted quickly to him, reflecting disdain in the exchange he wasn't privy to, before returning to the intruders. It might have been out of spite that he himself opted from English at that moment. "Of all things."

 

Kashckov learned languages quickly enough, but dropped them quickly as well. And not once did he delve into Japanese. His speech made Jigen hesitate visibly as the latter attempted to mentally translate. The gunman had a good grasp on Russian, but as closely related as the two dialects came, Lupin knew fluent Belarusian was beyond the Jigen's comprehension. Goemon wasn't so unnerved-- the only germanic language he had ever bothered with was English, and that even that was shoddy-- he was used to reading the situation without needing to communicate in words. In any case, neither he nor Jigen toned down their undercurrent of hostility.

 

"Let me handle this," Lupin spoke again, in English this time.

 

"Yes, this is a private matter between him and me, alone," Kashckov chimed in. "Imagine how discourteous you're being."

 

Jigen's teeth bared as he grit them tightly. "Imagine how much of a shit I don't give. Now hand him over."

 

"Jigen," Goemon hissed in Japanese. "I advise that you not antagonize him while Lupin--"

 

Tires screeching. The feds? But there were no sirens. The four paused as the hum of an engine drew rapidly closer. Until an abrupt blur of blue swerved around a corner and into the alley-- a pristine berlinette-- the rear bumper sending a trashcan sailing into the air in the sharp turn, the horn blaring with warning.

 

Jigen seized the opportunity of distraction and fired his magnum at Kashckov. The latter jerked back, allowing the round to sail between him and Lupin. As their eyes caught a final time, he offered a smile. Jigen fired several more follow-ups, but Kashckov kept stepping nimbly backward, just out of trajectory.

 

Without anything pinning him, Lupin felt his weight sagging-- but then, Goemon was there, ducking under his arm and supporting him. Jigen fell in with them, out of the way of the blue car careening down the alleyway, right at Kashckov.

 

The blonde leapt sideways, berlinette's side mirror just barely catching his hip and sending him stumbling. Jigen fired again, would have had him, but his magnum only clicked with the indication of a dry cylinder. Kashckov dipped low between two buildings, and off into the night. Lupin released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

 

The berlinette had screeched to a stop just ahead of them.

 

Fujiko's voice rang out: "Get the hell in!"

 

They didn't need any further prompting. Jigen ran up to the passenger side, eyes on the narrow pathway Kashckov had escaped through. Goemon dragged Lupin into the backseat. They'd barely gotten the doors closed before Fujiko was peeling out, spinning fast around a corner as flashing police lights lit up the alley behind them.

 

Jigen didn't even spare a minute to turn around in his seat and grab Lupin by the suit roughly, forcing their eyes to meet. Lupin couldn't think of another time Jigen had looked this pissed off. "Answers. _Now_."

 

That might have been Goemon trying to convince Jigen to let go, and Fujiko yelling at him that it wasn't the time for that--

 

But Lupin forced himself to meet Jigen's gaze, clasping his own hand over the gunman's, and leaned in. He could offer this much: "Iosif Kashckov."

 

Whether or not Jigen heard, Lupin wasn't able to confirm as he felt himself falling down, under,inward.... Out.


	4. Smolder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smol·der  
> ˈsmōldər/  
> _burn slowly with smoke but no flame.  
> _show or feel barely suppressed anger, hatred, or another powerful emotion.  
> _exist in a suppressed or concealed state.

The city was swarming with police presence. Jigen could easily spot out a pig solely by how they carried themselves, but so many officers afoot allowed him to become decently briefed on the specific look of Chilean law enforcement. The red and blue flashing lights never seemed to change between countries, so those were easy to watch for at the very least.

 

According to the radio, the explosion site as well as the auction Lupin and Fujiko crashed were both undergoing investigative lockdown. Civilians were being evacuated and relocated to schools and other public institutions for temporary shelter, and traffic was being redirected specified routes as to allow the feds an easier time of making passage through the main streets. Zenigata doggedly took command via loudspeaker, and made it a point to specifically address Lupin every quarter-hour or so with promises to weed the latter out.

 

Old Pops had already called in a shit load of back-up for the auction heist, and given immediate and immense department support solely because a chance to subdue Lupin the Third warranted any and all resources. But thanks to all the collateral of the car explosion, military force had also been sent in to approach it as a terrorist threat, erecting checkpoints and carrying out lockdown procedures. And the _helicopters_ ….

 

Circumventing a way through the whole mess was like playing an irritating game of Pac Man. Lupin likely would've been thrilled by it all, had he been awake. Jigen, unfortunately at full awareness, deemed it a supreme pain in the ass.

 

Even as they finally hit a quiet stretch of roadway-- the berlinette picked up speed, the city lights shrunk behind them, and Fujiko turned the radio off with a click-- agitation lingered in the car. Jigen moved to open his window, only to discover he was still clutching his magnum when it clacked against the manual crank. Knuckles white and fingers numb, choking the grip now, but otherwise in the exact same placement from when he had it trained on Kashckov's head.

 

A perfect shot. Front and rear sights aligned. He'd held her steady. At that distance, all of that shouldn't have even mattered.

 

_Lupin looking right at him, eyes unfocused and distant._

 

And he missed.

 

_Lupin defaulting to Japanese, because he didn't have the wherewithal to use English._

 

And he missed.

 

 _Lupin all too calm-- not even amused or self-assured, just_ docile _\-- as some bastard pressed a gun to his head, no game about it with the safety off and a finger curled around the trigger. Too calm as some bastard had a leg pressed into his groin with no way to construe it as anything other than what it was-- Jigen knew what the_ fuck _he was seeing._

 

And he fucking _missed_.

 

Jigen tucked the gun away and began patting his pockets down for his pack. He could've hauled the thief over his shoulder, maneuvered the alleyway like that with Goemon watching their six. He and Goemon could've hunted down that Kashckov fucker while Lupin waited in the room-- he'd known Kashckov was close, had to be what with how he'd manipulated them into delivering Lupin like some kind of express package. What the hell had Lupin been doing alone, anyway? _Fujiko_ should have been watching him.

 

"'I'll take care of Lupin', my friggin' foot," he found himself muttering, satisfied that it came out as harsh as it did.

 

Affronted not-laughter sounded from the driver's seat. " _Thank you_ , Fujiko. You saved our asses back there, Fujiko. We were balls-deep in shit before you showed up, Fujiko!"

 

"Yeah, screw off with all that. There's no special award for _not_ leaving someone to die. And even if there was, you've got a hell of a deficit to make up for."

 

"Oh, sure, I'm the only reason Lupin's skull isn't smattered across some back alley in Santiago, but fuck me, right?"

 

" _He_ probably will-- just ask him."

 

"Hon, he _totally_ will, without me even having to mention it. Maybe if _you_ stepped it up and asked, you'd finally get laid. He'd have to bottom, though-- wouldn't want whatever is jammed up _your_ ass to get shoved in even farther."

 

"And here I was for years, wondering what your problem was! So he only does anal with you?"

 

Fujiko took one hand off the wheel to wearily rub her temple. "Fuck you, Jigen."

 

Seeing her concede so easily was enough to diffuse most the steam Jigen had built up. They slumped back into their seats at the same time, exhaustion finally taking over where the last of their adrenaline ebbed off. Angry as he was, it had been a long enough night, and it was still ongoing.

 

Only once they settled down did Goemon speak up from the backseat. "Thank you, Fujiko."

 

"You're welcome," Fujiko replied, but didn't look any happier as she glanced at him in the rearview mirror, or rather at the unconscious thief sprawled over his lap.

 

Jigen had to resist the urge to turn around in his chair and check for himself. "How's he doing back there?"

 

"It is doubtful he will regain consciousness anytime soon…," Goemon said, and Jigen instantly recognized the feeling of eyes boring into the back of his head. "Though that may be for the better."

 

"Hey, he was completely out of it and even then I only got two words. He won't give us squat once he's sobered up. You realize that?"

 

There was a pause. Then Goemon quietly admitted, "You would know him best."

 

The gunman scoffed bitterly. "I thought I did, anyway."

 

"Jigen. The wren builds a nest, only after having flown from elsewhere."

 

Jigen fiddled with his lighter, hands restless, but he didn't want it to seem like he was opting out of the conversation by barraging the car with wind. Obviously, Goemon wanted to press a point. And yeah, he'd been furious when he grabbed Lupin, but he had no intent to hurt him. He just wanted to know what the hell was going on, be less in the dark. If he'd known what to expect, known what was clamoring around in Lupin's past, he would've been able to end it with a single round back in the alleyway. Then maybe, when Lupin passed out, sagged against his arms, he could just let him drop into the backseat and they'd all be laughing at his dumb ass.

 

Instead, Kashckov was at large, no one was laughing, and Jigen was _still_ furious-- at Lupin, at Fujiko and her conveniently fluctuating morals, at Goemon for _not_ being as furious, at _Kashckov_ \--

 

Screw it. Jigen cracked his window, crouching low to get his cigarette to catch light.

 

"Iosif Kashckov," Fujiko said, voice only just audible above the air drafts. Now that they were on the long stretch and she didn't have to shift, she'd propped an elbow against her window, palm catching her lean at the jaw. "Doesn't ring a bell at all. Must be intentionally low-profile. Lupin wouldn't bother telling us a name if it was just some nobody."

 

"The eve's take may yet have worth beyond monetary means," Goemon suggested. "Perhaps therein lies the impetus of Kashckov's intent."

 

Jigen recalled then the necklace that Lupin had been clutching. The one he'd been holding it against Kashckov, like he were showing him. But the look on his face, the fact that he had his walther in his other hand and a chance to shoot but hadn't-- it didn't add up. Then, the fact that Kashckov had rained lead on Jigen and Goemon for so long, only to break abruptly and tear off into the dark. And the next time they'd see him was pressed up against Lupin…. That part _shouldn't_ have added up. Jigen gritted his teeth, forgetting about the filter in his mouth until it had squeezed too flat to take a proper drag.

 

"There _is_ a bit of lore to it," Fujiko remarked. "But it's only included in the piece description for show. And because there's no one to legitimize the claims, it's been accepted as entirely fictitious…. So I'm guessing Kashckov took the prize and ran?"

 

"And you thought I was insensitive for wanting answers?" Jigen demanded. "Don't worry, Lupin's got your precious necklace."

 

"I was just _asking_! Also, it's a bracelet. Get it right."

 

Jigen stared at her incredulously. He wasn't one for accessorizing beyond decent headwear, but he was pretty sure he knew what a necklace looked like. But then, it also wasn't like Fujiko to mistake something that'd caught her eye. Before he could argue with her, a thought struck him. He reached up and flipped on the dome light. "Hey. Goemon--"

 

"Indeed," Goemon affirmed. "It will not take…but a moment…."

 

"Okay?" Fujiko pursed her lips as she waited apprehensively.

 

But then, Jigen spotted the exact moment she caught sight of the necklace the way her expression changed. She held her hand out speechless, and Goemon placed it into her open palm. It was Jigen's first close glimpse of it as well, having only seen it from a distance in a dark alley, and he couldn't help but eye the detail now that he was privy to it.

 

Huge cuts of dark, lulling sapphire maintained the focal point of the piece. They adorned silver rounded plates that were largest at the center of the necklace, tapering in size with every farther pair. Each curled with a slight lip, reminiscent of a flower petal's buoyant curve. Each plate was further decorated with an intricate pattern of diamonds and smaller sapphire cuts that helped distribute the gravitational hue of the larger gems, adding more shape to the silver and accentuating the floral intention of the design. The outermost plates gave way to three parallel strands of silver chainweave, each ending in one half of a complete clasp. Even in the dim lighting, the necklace refracted dramatically, dusting a tiny radius around it in white and blue-tinted sparkles.

 

Jigen had never sought out such gaudy articles of his own volition, but his line of work introduced him to enough excessive fortune that he could at least discern when something was actually worth its price tag. And this was real deal, top-of-the-line pretension at its finest.

 

"I can't believe it. This is _Blaue Blume_." Fujiko's eyes kept flitting greedily from the road, drawn to the necklace as she turned it over in her hand. "Crafted by the same jeweler as my bracelet. Part of the same collection, theoretically."

 

"Two of the same collection does not nod towards random chance," Goemon asked.

 

When Fujiko didn't answer, the samurai reached forward and swiftly plucked the necklace from her grasp. Startled, she blinked rapidly, the spell broken now that the distraction was gone, and she pouted indignantly into the rearview.

 

Jigen flipped the domelight back off, squinting at their surroundings. They were well into rural expanse now; anything that wasn't in their headlamps was pitchy countryside. Home was close, at least. ('Home' being an unoccupied vacation rental Lupin had designated for their appropriation.) Jigen wasn't sure how much more he could take of this car ride.

 

"Looks like Kashckov helped himself to Dooey, after all," he quipped, unable to help the small bit of schadenfreude at the thought.

 

Fujiko huffed. "If you're going to rub it in, you might as well use its real name."

 

"Or I can worry about more important things."

 

"Uh-huh, and your list must be _so_ long."

 

"Yeah, it'd be safe to assume that after tonight, all of our lists would be on the hefty side! That is, if you're not friggin' heartless."

 

"'Deutlichkeit Halber', was it not?" Goemon asserted, breaking up the tiff early this time. There was a new edge to his voice indicating that even the samurai's patience was wearing thin. "A passing storm impresses the valley, but nothing will sprout from mere thunder."

 

The car's frontside fell quiet again, both occupants fidgeting uncomfortably. Jigen flicked his spent stub out the window and folded his hands behind his head for lack of else to do. Beside him, Fujiko was shaking out her hair, recomposing herself.

 

"It's a love story," she explained, her voice taking a solemn note. "A jeweler designed and crafted an entire collection for his wife, to keep up her spirits during the second world war. All the pieces were lost to time. A few of been found, but only so tarnished that they were beyond restoration. Blaue Blume, the necklace, was the first piece of the collection."

 

Fujiko took a moment to shift into the higher gears, slowing the car down. The next turn took them off asphalt and onto dirt road. Bits of gravel clinked against the bottom of the car. As the wheels began kicking up dust, Jigen was forced to close the window, sealing the compartment shut. In the distance, the city in all its artificial brilliance could still be spotted out past the hills, but it was mere footnote out here where stars and an unobstructed moon dominated the night sky.

 

"The final piece, Deutlichkeit Halber, was supposedly made only after the wife had already passed away. And as you know, a lover's tragedy always wins over the masses, no matter if it's true or not, so there was some commotion once it was rediscovered at some thrift store in Temuco. I thought it'd be a cute hit for a Valentine's date." She shot a begrudged side-glance at Jigen. "Sorry for interrupting 'boy's night'."

 

Jigen only grunted, not trusting himself to say anything that wouldn't start another fight. The apology was way off the mark, at any rate. He drank off his anger about her intrusion when he'd been back at the bar. Now he had an entirely different mess of reasons to drink.

 

"Anyway, unless Kashckov's a collection hobbyist or a period snob, there's nothing particularly special about either piece. I mean, aside from its outrageous final bid and the fact that both would look killer on me."

 

"The value may be sentimental then," Goemon proposed softly. "It would be appear Lupin…shares a history with that man."

 

Bile rose in Jigen's throat and his trigger-finger twitched. With the window closed, there was nothing to beat back the silence that descended. None of them dared approach the unspoken topic that had been gnawing at the back of their minds the whole night.

 

"No hounding him," Fujiko announced sternly, and Jigen had to clench his jaw at the sneaking suspicion she was mainly addressing him. "He'll be feeling like shit for the next few days or so thanks to the roofie, and his memory's gonna be shot. So let's just all agree to give Lupin some recovery time before we start interrogating."

 

"We are fortunate to have your expertise, Fujiko," Goemon acknowledged. "But may I inquire as to how you've become so versed on such a narcotic?"

 

For a guarded moment, Fujiko didn't respond. And when Jigen glanced over, he could see the hand she had on the wheel was squeezing tight.

 

"Women tend to be more aware of these things," she said finally. But before the statement could sink in, the car pulled to a stop. "We're here."

 

 

 

_"Lupin. Hey. Lupin."_

 

_No response. He really was gone._

 

_And so, Jigen braced himself for the arduous process of dragging a passed-the-fuck-out Lupin the Third out of the fiat. He wasn't unfamiliar with hauling Lupin's dead weight around, and he wasn't incredibly opposed to it, as he'd done it enough times, through hell and high-water. But if the thief was at all able to use his own two legs, Jigen wasn't about to coddle him._

 

 _He tried again, stooping into the back seat and shaking the thief slightly. "Lupin. Goemon's gonna be back soon. Let's_ go _."_

 

_A mumble this time. So helpful._

 

_"Jackass," Jigen sighed and budged closer._

 

_He was sweating.... Jigen touched his knuckles to the thief's forehead. A little warm, but nothing extreme. He'd live. Jigen had to move one of Lupin's arms out of the way to get to the seatbelt release, adjusting himself so that Lupin's weight leaned against him instead of on the belt buckle. It came undone with a click._

 

_And Lupin hummed-- a low, pleased sound in his throat that made Jigen's hands hesitate. The gunman quickly shook the surprise, putting his arms around the thief to hoist him up. But then Lupin's breath hitched, his body felt like it had gone rigid. Was he waking up?_

 

_"Iosif…," Lupin breathed._

 

Jigen took another lazy swig of wine as he turned the memory over in his mind again, starting from the beginning. At this point, he wondered if by now he was rewriting the details, adding in extra things that never happened, rather than remembering it better. He rubbed a hand over his face, scratching into his itchy beard-- a shower would be a good idea.

 

There was an initial assumption Jigen had that he would be the only one awake at some point in the night, but it was proven wrong as the hours crawled by. None of the three of them were interested in sleep.

 

Goemon had taken to the roof and never quite got around to coming back down-- and if Jigen wasn't mistaken with his current buzz, he could recognize the sound of the samurai's snaphance lighter and the smell of burning kizami. The door the led to Lupin's room had been left open, and from inside, Jigen could hear faint typing as Fujiko busied herself with probing around the darknet for intel. Accordingly, Jigen found himself nursing on some wine he'd found in the cupboard in order to stave off whittling away at the few cigarettes he still had in his pack.

 

It certainly wasn't for lack of exhaustion; after having settled Lupin into bed, there had been a wordless consensus of a need to be alone, and they all simply retreated to their own spaces. That was the perk of having worked together for so long, Jigen supposed. They tended to remain in sync even when off-duty.

 

That must have been why at the point Jigen got up to stretch his legs, Fujiko was stepping out of Lupin's room in mid-yawn, and Goemon happened to be setting a foot down from where he'd been entering through an open window. Clockwork.

 

It took them a delayed moment to register one another's presence in the dark living room, and even then the attitude they collectively took was of resignation.

 

"Nothing," Fujiko said, folding her arms as a cool breeze wafted in from the window. "The only Iosif Kashckov I could find was some kid from Belarus who died at thirteen."

 

 _Belarus._ No wonder Jigen hadn't understood a lick of his talk. He'd been worried his Russian had grown outdated. It had been a while since he'd had a reason to visit the old Mother Motherland.

 

"Surely there were pictures?" Goemon pressed, pushing off the sill to come closer to where Jigen and Fujiko stood across from one another.

 

"A few-- and there's some generic likeness, but it's kind of a hard comparison after puberty, and I only got a glimpse of his face before trying to hit him with my car."

 

Stealing some deceased's identity was common practice in dodging the feds, but having no record entirely was like trying to apply for a normal job without a resume. One needed a decent rep to secure decent funding. And Kashckov had all the resource someone who'd been in the professional underworld for a while-- not to mention all the brazenness of someone who spent most his time operating outside society's safety net. If he'd known Lupin even before Jigen had met the thief, that spoke of at least over a solid decade of experience.

 

"Lupin fakes his death all the time," Jigen pointed out. "He only keeps his name because he wants to. Normal convicts cycle through different aliases."

 

"Kashckov-- assuming that's his main-- has to have a business handle," Fujiko agreed. "But even then…it's anyone's guess. If I at least knew what even the hell he does for a living, it'd do wonders for narrowing things down."

 

The three returned to deep introspection.

 

Jigen had a problem with fixation-- it was one of the reasons he could never kick his smoking habit. He could be stuck thinking about this for the rest of the night. And if the noticeable lightening of the room was anything to go by, he already had. Outside the window, the sky had attained more blue than black. But from the looks at Goemon and Fujiko's pensive stances, they were as bullheaded as he in refusing to believe that their only lead had come to a dead end.

 

The quiet was broken by a weak groan, followed nearly immediately by retching. Both Jigen and Goemon turned their heads at the sound, but Fujiko was the first one who began moving towards it.

 

"No hounding," she reiterated, holding a pointed finger at them before disappearing into Lupin's room.

 


	5. Flicker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flicker  
> ˈflikər/  
> _(of a flame) burn fitfully, alternately flaring up and dying down.  
> _(of a feeling or emotion) be experienced or show itself briefly and faintly, especially in someone's eyes.

Dead.

 

Jigen set down his phone with a relieved exhale of smoke. The final GPS trace went as far as the detour they'd been forced to take up to Las Condes, and then the battery had given out. If Kashckov had kept tabs, he'd at least have no idea that they were situated in Pirque. He still had no idea where his tracker had ended up-- he'd already combed through the berlinette and found nothing, but the thought of groping around Lupin's pockets while he was still unconscious gave Jigen all sorts of connotatively foul vibes.

 

It could wait. With the chipset hacked, Jigen wouldn't have dared try to charge or power it back up anyway. Part of him was pleased enough that as out of it as the guy had been been, Lupin had somehow retained enough mind to hold onto it.

 

When Fujiko said Lupin would be feeling like shit, she'd meant _serious_ shit. The poor asshole hadn't even been fully conscious when he rolled over to vomit onto the floor yesterday morning. Since then he'd been what looked like a whole universe of hurt, eyes screwed tightly shut and only responsive enough to groan, only enough strength to puke some more. Luckily he at least had enough awareness to utilize the trash bin they'd left beside his bed for that exact purpose.

 

Jigen had looked into his room around three times today, the last being sometime around lunch. The breakfast he'd left this morning wasn't entirely untouched (a win, because Jigen would take any he could get at this point), but a couple bites missing from a whole plate of caloric value wasn't anything to cheer about. The fork by the plate hadn't even been used. It was as if Lupin haphazardly grabbed some egg, stuck some in his mouth to see how well he could stomach it-- and, if the fresh vomit in the trash bin was anything to go by, he'd decided firmly against eating anything else.

 

Other than that sole sign of activity, he'd been out cold each time Jigen had gone in to check that he was still breathing, and the latter knew how to read Lupin's bullshit at this point. With how often Lupin liked playing dead, Jigen'd know if the guy were at least playing sick. And today looked like it was going to be another quiet day.

 

He took a handful of papers-- hand-drawn diagrams and nonsensically scribbled notes-- off the thin stack off the table and crumpled them into a clay pot he'd found at the side of the house. When the pot was sufficiently filled, he lit the papers on fire.

 

 

 

 

Daylight had brought out the color of the quaint, folksy cottage. It was a cramped single-story building, more of a glorified shed than a house-- trimmed in stone and wood on the outside, with painted accent walls adding some zest for decor of the inside. The walls separated into three smaller bedrooms along a short corridor with a bathroom at the end. A larger shared area took the other half of the square footage; the kitchen opened up to the backyard patio, with the couch and coffee table at the front door, and a simple dining table centered between to imply a divide of the space.

 

But it was well-kept, apparently bought out as a timeshare, during whatever time it wasn't being appropriated by wanted felons as a hideout. And Jigen had to admit, it was much homier than the usual dilapidated shack or rundown motel room, though that was likely due in part to the fact that he'd planned for Fujiko's comfort. The man tended towards surprisingly minimalist conditions in regards for living-- a huge contrast to all his affection towards the grandeur when it came to overcomplicated heists and luxury-model cars. Jigen supposed that those were the habits of the kind of person who never stayed anywhere long enough to set roots.

 

He himself didn't pay much mind to amenities, so long as there was a place to lie down and get decent shut-eye, and he was the type to be able to take a nap _anywhere_.

 

Now actually would have been a decent time as any to, if Jigen hadn't noticed Goemon approach. They nodded a greeting to one another, and then the samurai took the chair on the other side of the table. For a while neither spoke.

 

Goemon took to the view of lush, mountainous green wild, and the span of vineyards in the valley beyond the cottage's vantage. Jigen was finishing up the last of the papers, dipping them into the clay pot and compacting down the ashes of the burned sheets before them. He lit a new cigarette off the flames.

 

"The old plan?" Goemon inquired, turning to eye the small fire. He'd been delegated to a few paper-shredding tasks himself, in the past years working with Lupin.

 

"Yeah. I'd say it's a nil shot that Lupin'll wanna pick it up again, what with how quick he dropped it for Fujiko." Bitterness had crept into his voice, but Jigen couldn't find it in himself to care. "Waste of a decent set-up, if you ask me."

 

"If my memory serves, it was your idea to throw the original heist," Goemon said. But he didn't sound accusatory, merely curious. "And to treat this excursion as merely sabbatical."

 

"I always say shit like that. And only because he won't do it. Guy's a workaholic."

 

"One of his few redeeming qualities."

 

Jigen snorted, propping his legs up as he leaned back into his chair. "You mean there's more?"

 

"Potentially." Something of a smirk appeared on Goemon's face. "Although, we may sooner catch sight of the Hibagon."

 

"Hell! Make it Kashckov, while we're at it."

 

Goemon's eyes flitted over to him, only briefly, but it was enough for Jigen to catch. The samurai cleared his throat. "What action will you take when Lupin regains himself?"

 

"What kind of question…?" Jigen sighed. "I thought the idea was to grill him. Nothing wrong with sticking to that. Especially now that we know the only piece of info he gave us was a dead lead. Unless Fujiko managed to find anything else on it yet?"

 

"Not yet, though not for lack of trying. But I had meant--"

 

"What about the jewelry?"

 

Goemon made a grunt at the overt interruption, folding his arms into his sleeves despite the warmth of midday. "He clutches it, like the moon for want of the sun's light."

 

Jigen stared at him, cigarette almost dropping from his mouth before he clamped his teeth back on the filter. "I was asking if there was anything else to the friggin' _lore_. But nice footnote, because all of this wasn't already screwed up enough as is."

 

"It is alright to find it disturbing. Considering…what we know of the situation." Goemon shifted uncharacteristically; usually the samurai could sit motionlessly for hours. "But that much may prove crucial to settling the matter. I do not think Lupin's feelings should be disregarded, as it is his former partner."

 

It was maddening-- Jigen had used the word 'partner' to describe them for years. But suddenly the word held an all too distinct shade of alternative meaning. Suddenly it felt less like what Jigen and Lupin actually were, and more like what _Kashckov_ and Lupin had once been.

 

Catching the sudden fluctuation in Jigen's attitude, Goemon sighed and stood up. "In regards to the lore, please consider speaking with Fujiko."

 

"Right. Fine. I got it."

 

"Ice seeped into stone will only encourage a fissure's growth."

 

"I said, _I got it_."

 

"And Jigen," Goemon addressed, diplomatic in tone. But his frown had deepened. "You should not allow this to affect your resolve."

 

"I don't need to hear that right now!" Jigen exclaimed stridently before he could stop himself.

 

There might have been a twitch in Goemon's eye, but otherwise he remained composed.

 

"Then pay no heed," he said plainly, and left.

 

 

 

 

Fujiko had staked a claim to the largest room-- a sole door centered in the short hallway, as opposed to the two smaller bedrooms beside each other across the narrow corridor-- and it was probable that Lupin had meant for the two of them to share it. Instead, when they'd dragged him in, he'd simply been put in the room that had the most straightforward path from the front door.

 

The room happened to open right up towards the couch, which suited Jigen fine. And the bedroom door always stayed open. Jigen took a gander inside as he passed. Lupin sprawled every which way when he slept; more telling was the expression on his face. There was more color to it. He seemed more like he was _resting_ now, rather than suffering, at least.

 

Feeling steadier now, Jigen continued on to Fujiko's door.

 

Her voice was still raspy from sleep when she told him to just come in. She was rising from the pillow as he opened the door, apparently having fallen asleep right on top of the duvet, not bothering to be demure about wiping the drool off her chin as she clicked her dry tongue. She didn't normally go out of her way to do overtly sensual things whenever it was just the two of them. Even now, he knew she'd be more careful about her leg stubble showing if it had been Goemon or Lupin coming in, or anyone else really.

 

She looked about as enthusiastic of his presence as he was to be there. But it seemed like she'd relented to the conversation, as she reached high over her head to stretch.

 

"You've been spending a lot of time holed up in here," he remarked.

 

"Hmm, imagine that, when you're such a joy to be around lately." She regarded him with mock disbelief before rolling her eyes. "Did something new happen?"

 

"Just checking in. Goemon seems pretty convinced that the story behind the jewelry is worth discussing."

 

A tired, but fond smile broke over Fujiko's lip. "He would. That man breathes metaphors all day. _Some_ uncouth folk might want to take a note or two."

 

Jigen refused to let that get under his skin. " _Some_ uncouth folk save their page space for more literal _information_."

 

"Then I don't know what to tell you. They're accessories: pretty, and expensive. Receiving those as a gift would be romantic gestures of the highest degree. Especially Blaue Blume. …How's your German?"

 

"'Blue flower'," he answered irritably. "Doesn't take conversational fluency."

 

"I meant _culturally_. There's some symbolic weight here, unless you're too angry to listen to that, too."

 

"More symbolic than some shmuck giving his wife something shiny to wear? God, you and Goemon _both_ with all that…. If it doesn't get Kashckov any closer to six feet under, then spare me. Is that all?"

 

A beat passed.

 

She was studying his face, as if weighing a decision. Then, she asked quietly, "Look, can we just clear the air now?"

 

"What do you mean by _that_?" Jigen growled.

 

" _That's_ what I mean by that. You've been nothing but snippy as hell ever since this whole thing started."

 

"Right, because par for the two of us would be springtime bike rides and brunch every third Saturday."

 

"Well, it certainly isn't you taking whatever cheap shot you can at me!" Fujiko snapped. "I get it-- you're pissed. But if you'd only pull your head out of your ass, maybe you'd see you're not the only one."

 

"Except I _am_ , for only god knows why!" Even to himself, Jigen thought he sounded loud. But it had been over twenty-four hours of off-put silences and passive aggression-- and as catharsis lanced the swollen tension in the air, he took and ran with it. "I tell him time and time again, _don't fucking trust her_ , that it'll only lead to trouble-- and each time he ignores me. And now that it's fucking led to the worst literal shit that's ever happened on a job, I'm still the asshole for calling it as it is?"

 

" _That's_ where you're going with this? That everything that's happened is _my_ fault?" Fujiko's voice hit a shrill, unhinged note. "And I don't know if you noticed, what with how low over the eyes you wear that atrocity of a fedora, but _I'm not Kashckov_."

 

"I haven't even gotten to that part yet. But while we're on the subject, Lupin does seem to have a friggin' type."

 

"Honestly, how _dare_ you? Yeah, I have my fun and yank his chain, but I've never done anything so bad that he…. I've never _raped_ him!"

 

The word hung, acrid in the air-- like a taboo, untouched and nearly unacknowledged if not for how hard they were trying at not letting its presence affect them. Jigen couldn't take it.

 

"Changing heists was _your_ shit idea," he reiterated.

 

"So the fuck what? Other than that, I didn't do _anything_ , Jigen!"

 

"You're the one who ditched him for easy pickings in the hotel room. So no, I guess you didn't really _do_ anything, but you sure made it a hell of a lot easier for Kashckov to."

 

Fujiko's defensive posture grew slack. "That was before…."

 

"But even after, when we _knew_ someone was after Lupin, you…you _left_ him. After you even said you'd look after him, and I believed you and gave you _another_ chance…." Jigen shook his head. "Damn it all, Fujiko, _I_ trusted you once upon a fucking time before all this happened-- at least a _bit_ \-- at least enough to assume you had his back when it really mattered. Great job fucking all that up!"

 

" _I know_."

 

Fujiko's voice came out so small and meek, Jigen almost thought he'd imagined it. When he looked at her again, her eyes were brimmed over with tears. She was sniffling, face red and scrunched and she looked down as if to hide it.

 

"I know, okay?" she whispered, hugging herself as her shoulders shook. More tears fell onto her lap. "You think I'm heartless or something? That it doesn't kill me all the time? I haven't _stopped_ thinking about what I should have done instead, how everything should have happened…. That's why I'm _trying_. I'm working to somehow make up for it."

 

Not knowing how else to respond, Jigen found himself muttering, "You wish it were that easy, don't you?"

 

He wasn't even sure if he was really talking to her, or to himself. All this yelling, and nothing was getting solved. He thought he'd feel better if he could at least get Fujiko to admit to some blame, but here she was crying, and he was left wondering if the handkerchief in his pocket was clean enough to offer to her.

 

But then, the crying noises ceased. Fujiko's shoulders suddenly held still. When she met his gaze again, her eyes had become eerily glass-looking, face devoid of emotion-- it was as if she were a doll. A long sniffle broke the illusion, and then a small line appeared between her eyebrows as they furrowed.

 

" _You_ don't get to have it that easy either," she said, quietly because her voice was already worn from her weeping. Louder, breathier, she continued. " _You're_ the one who sent him on over. I was still on the line when you two had your spat, you know. 'Me or her'. Your words."

 

"Don't go acting like you're so above making him pick," Jigen grit out, immediately angry again. "Anyway, he chose you that night. That's on _him_."

 

"Nuh-uh, hon. If that excuse doesn't work for me, it doesn't work for you." Fujiko simpered bitterly, white teeth gleaming. "So here it is. If we're gonna root out the blame, let's go right to the source, shall we?"

 

Bloodrush was a roar in his ears. "You can't seriously believe--"

 

"Oh, but I _can_. You are _so_ hung up on this _insane_ imaginary pecking order. Like, what? Because you dedicate your life to being a doormat, you think you deserve first priority whenever Lupin decides on anything?" She stood up from the bed, eyes shining with teary rage. "And the only reason you get along so well with Goemon is because _he_ actually abides by it! I bet if he wasn't so tolerant of your piss attitude, you'd drop that buddy-buddy act in a heartbeat."

 

Any words Jigen had wilted and fell away as he digested that. She placed a hand on his shoulder and began pushing him, not with much power, but in his bewilderment it was enough to force him to step and catch himself.

 

She went on, forcing him backward out of the room.

 

"Lupin was one breath away from dragging you and Goemon along, and that would have made all the difference in keeping him safe, and you _know_ it! But _you_ had to force an ultimatum! Well, congratulations. It worked out _so_ well." She gave him a last shove and this time, it had the vigor to sent him stumbling. "You go on and on about how selfish _I_ am, but you failed him just as much as I did! 'Great job fucking up' to you, too."

 

Jigen's voice dropped low, ground through his teeth. "Listen, you _bitch_ \--"

 

"Screw you," she snarled raggedly. "Just stay the hell away from me. I'm _tired_."

 

If Jigen hadn't bothered to step back, the door would've slammed into him as well as the doorframe. He heard her turn the lock, and immediately pulled out his magnum to shoot out the knob entirely because _hell_ if he wasn't about to let her have the last say. But before he could even toggle the safety, a soft cry stopped him.

 

It wasn't isolated, soon followed by a torrent of wailing, muffled by the door and probably a pillow. Completely different from the furious, blistered note they'd left off on. Different still from her overwhelmed self-pity a bit earlier. There was only grief now. It wasn't any kind of upset Jigen could ever remember Fujiko exhibiting in all their years working together.

 

He would've been more stunned, if he still wasn't so pissed _off_.

 

In his peripheral, he spotted out Goemon perched on the window sill, postured for meditation. But the disgruntled expression on his face told that he was far from reaching zen.

 

For a moment, the samurai looked as if he were about to impart one of his high-and-mighty abstract idioms. But Jigen shot him a dark, scathing glare that seemed to be enough to make him refrain. Not without rebuke. The samurai returned a glower of his own, indicating he wasn't going to endure any of Jigen's foul mood himself.

 

They broke eyelock at the same time, and while Goemon haughtily shut his eyes to resume his meditation, Jigen stormed outside to light a fucking cigarette.

 

None of the three of them really spoke for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

 

Jigen dreamed of Santiago.

 

It wasn't been the first time that recollected nightmare played, but this time, it was playing backwards. Bounding desperately through the tight alleys after discovering Fujiko and Lupin had gone AWOL, losing sight of the rooftop shooter-- he'd thought that had been the pinnacle of his stress-levels that night. That was where the dream started, he and Goemon frantically scanning down every corner for some sign of the other two as they ran, following only a vague sense of where they'd thought they'd heard the far-off stray discharged round. (Jigen could picture the gun just from the sound, the slide springing cocked, the hammer clacking forward.) He had come to dread the certainty at the start of each dreaming cycle that it would always end with he and Goemon falling behind, losing ground, but now he realized it may have been even worse from finish to start instead.

 

The alley. The room. The car. The hotel. Watching Fujiko drive past him without Lupin in sight. Throwing back drinks in the bar, bitterly hoping for the heist to fail. Buzzing and angry, shouting at Lupin that he refused to have anything to do with the auction heist. The way Lupin stared at him, shocked. Shocked, and a little-- no. Not a little. Shocked and very much--

 

Jigen woke up, a dull ache coming from somewhere in his rib cage, between his lungs, not wanting to try and specify any further than that of the origin. He on the living room couch, blinking awake to a muffled thud coming from someone clumsily navigating the bathroom.

 

Mentally smothering the feeling in his chest, Jigen ran a sleeved forearm over his face as he gathered back clarity. His watch read a few minutes after three-thirty. Well. He wasn't getting back to sleep anytime soon. Might as well head outside for a smoke.

 

When he passed by Lupin's room, he glanced in, just to check. And he found the bed empty, sheets tossed askew.

 

Then, the noise in the bathroom--

 

Jigen backed out, whirling towards the sudden flood of yellow luminance in the hall just as the bathroom door was pushed open. Goemon stepped out from the steamed room first, but he had an arm slung around his neck. Another step, and Jigen could finally see that pressed into his side was an upright Lupin the Third.

 

The latter's hair was still wet, bangs dripping and flopping over his forehead. But he was donning a fresh set of shirt and slacks, all dressed like he was ready to swing right back into business. He might have been, if it wasn't for how heavily he sagged against Goemon for support, and how much effort it seemed to take him to even barely manage to keep his own legs from folding.

 

"I found him collapsed in the shower," Goemon explained when he noticed Jigen.

 

"'Collapsed', like mémé took a spill," Lupin griped before Jigen's worry kicked in. The delivery came weak-- but he was finally, in pure _essence_ , the Lupin he hadn't been while doped up and strung out. And his face was turning the most delightfully lively shade of humiliated red. "At least help me save face by emphasizing the struggle a bit more."

 

Goemon raised an eyebrow. Then, deadpanned to Jigen, "I lent assistance, for he was unable to dry and dress himself."

 

"Yeah, you're doing it wrong."

 

"He had knocked down all of the hygiene products in a failed attempt to catch his fall."

 

"Okay, _thank you_ , Goemon," Lupin stressed, sounding more desperate than grateful.

 

Jigen tried to cut it off at a snort, but before he knew it he was practically bent over himself on the sniggers that kept bubbling up from his stomach. It was like trying to stop the carbonated overflow of a shaken pop bottle, fizzy feeling included. And as Lupin flung a betrayed look to him, Jigen outright guffawed out of spite.

 

"Go ahead, laugh it up," Lupin sulked, and at that point, even Goemon was chuckling lightly. "Both of you. Next time I need to barf, I know where I'm aiming."

 

"Stain this suit, and the new one's gonna be on _your_ dime." Still entirely too amused, Jigen sidled to the thief's other side, reaching out to help shoulder his weight. "You already owe me a new hat."

 

"Goody, a chance to finally improve your wardrobe," Lupin shot back, but he was matching Jigen's grin by then. And then, just because he was a snide little shit, he let go of Goemon completely and heaved his entire weight into the gunman. "Hope these wrinkles come out!"

 

Another laugh escaped Jigen as they collided, but otherwise he caught him easily; he was well-acquainted with Lupin's stupid monkey antics of hanging off of him one way or another. "Alright already, settle down!"

 

"To think that a mere hour ago, we were relishing in the peace," Goemon lamented, but there was too much mirth in his voice for anyone to take his statement at face-value. Not to mention, Jigen knew firsthand how much relishing there actually hadn't been.

 

"No kidding." He aimed a dull glare at Lupin, who looked away and feigned innocence. "It's the middle of the _night_ , for crying out loud."

 

"I should go inform Fujiko of Lupin's coherency, if our noise has yet to disturb her repose." Goemon locked a side-glance with Jigen, who found it difficult to hold.

 

It wasn't a big house, and they'd all been sleeping lightly ever since the first night. In all likelihood, Fujiko was already up. Jigen wasn't even sure how he was going to approach her again after what had happened in the day, and he was betting the feeling was mutual. Goemon probably wanted talk to her about that before attempting to get the two them into the same room again.

 

"Inform her of my undying love while you're at it?" Lupin butted into their light of sight then, batting his eyes.

 

The corner of Goemon's mouth twitched, and he resigned. "I will pass along the sentiment."

 

"As for you," Jigen said, pulling Lupin's weight higher up against him to support him better. "It's back to bed, mémé."

 

"Yes, _pépé_."

 

He was little surprised that Lupin hadn't insisted on tagging along with Goemon to Fujiko's room. (Not to mention relieved. He didn't even want to imagine how Lupin would be after finding out the magnitude of his and Fujiko's argument.) He was so used to Lupin moving entire mountains of responsibility if just to throw himself at Fujiko's whim.

 

But he could see now that while Lupin had managed to stand, he was still sick as a dog, leaning into Jigen and swaying with each step. But there was a thinness to his breath now, and his eyes were less focused. Jigen pulled him up higher to support him better.

 

"A shower," Jigen grumbled, shuffling them down the hallway. He ignored the overwhelming rush of deja vu, hauling a debilitated Lupin down a narrow corridor. "Couldn't wait 'til morning. Had to risk cracking your damn head open."

 

"Thought I'd shake it off by now," Lupin groaned as Jigen groped for the light switch inside the room. "Think I might do better sitting."

 

"Go figure-- maybe take the hint and _rest_ some more. It wouldn't kill you to stay still for a friggin' minute."

 

"You don't know that." Lupin shot him a cheeky, brief half-smile as he was lowered towards the mattress.

 

Jigen paused, feeling Lupin's hands clench into his shirt and hearing the hitch of breath as his head suddenly bowed into Jigen. More vertigo.

 

"No barfing," Jigen prompted.

 

"No promises," was the strained response.

 

Tentatively, Jigen moved his hand to Lupin's back to help him shift his weight, watchful for any bad reactions to his touch. He had to wonder about the guy's mental state, after….

 

Lupin took another breath, leaning into Jigen as he regained some of his center of balance, wet hair soaking a damp spot on the latter's shoulder. Jigen was again reminded of that night-- how they'd been in the car, after Goemon took off. How they'd been in Fujiko's side-rental, Jigen setting him down onto the bed. But it was different now. They were out of harm's reach. Lupin was finally out of his roofie trip, rather than in the midst of it.

 

Jigen's hand slid upward, clasping around the base of Lupin's neck.

 

"I can't wait to give you _all_ sorts of shit for this once you snap back into shape," he muttered. He allowed a few moments to pass before nudging his chin to Lupin's head. "Lay down, jackass. I got you."

 

"Back at the bar. In the city." Lupin had his eyes squeezed shut as he settled back against the pillow. "Were we talking about something?"

 

"...Pretty standard thing to do at bars. You oughtta come out more."

 

Surprisingly, Lupin insisted, "I feel like…I forgot a lot."

 

Fujiko had mentioned that would happen. Jigen scowled. He hadn't considered the memory loss would effect events that early on. His jaw felt like it had been wound shut with barbed wire, but he still forced the question festering in his throat. "Do you remember Kashckov?"

 

"I…. Yeah. I do."

 

Lupin's features shifted, paled-- he looked like he was about to be sick again. He moved an arm over his face, over his eyes. Jigen suspected it was less to block out the light, and more to shield himself from Jigen's prying gaze, and he looked away as a show of respect. But disdain stabbed at his gut. There was nothing that Lupin should have felt the need to hide from him.

 

Cold comfort that the guy wasn't trying to use the amnesia card to dodge the issue entirely. Maybe getting him to fill them in on the situation wouldn't be like pulling teeth after all. As if to stress the point, Lupin heaved a bone-weary sigh, like he was relenting to that very fact. And Jigen felt his own resolve break. He wouldn't expect any person to look forward to talking about that.

 

"Listen. It doesn't matter right now. Just get better so I can really start laying into you." Jigen pushed himself off the bed. "I'll bring a cold rag."

 

"Jigen," Lupin called.

 

Jigen paused at the doorway to look back. Lupin still had his arm over his face, but the visible part of his face held a grimace.

 

Then, an apology: "Sorry."

 

There were a million things Lupin could have shown remorse over ( _should_ have, even), and he had to choose the one that Jigen could never truly fault him for.

 

He had a thought to go back to the bedside, force Lupin to look at him, say something like "Don't be sorry, just don't fucking _do_ this". And then, they could hash out every untold detail right there, figure out the next step, work through it all as the partners they were. After that, maybe even go _beyond_ the whole Kashckov fiasco. And that would be overstepping, that would be unjustifiable entitlement at that point-- even Lupin's meddling in other's affairs halted at anything that wasn't a present concern-- and in all good sense, no one owed anyone that much of themselves-- Jigen knew all that, but still. Still, he wanted to ask. Hell, he wanted to _demand_ , to push for it, if only to make known that the demand existed at all.

 

Just not with Goemon and Fujiko about to walk in at any moment.

 

So Jigen just said, "Good. But you're still not off the hook."

 

He left only after seeing the small return of a smile back in Lupin's expression. For now, that was enough.

 

 

 

 

There was a song in his head.

 

Not likely anything that received any airtime on local radio; it was too arbitrary and unruly. Probably something Lupin had hummed or sung at some point, hands artfully flexing and fluttering over some prototype contraption or sketch of a plan concept. And now, here were Jigen's own hands currently harboring that same bounce, opening the cupboards in search of a face towel; even his steps were almost springy when he'd entered the bathroom.

 

He ran the tap, waiting for the water to go cold (the pipes here got _hot_ during the day, bringing the default water temp to warm), drumming his fingers against the porcelain as he mulled over how to go about the delivery of said cold rag.

 

It'd be hilarious simply to hurl it across the room just to hear Lupin holler and bitch, get him all riled up again. That idiot could stand to suffer a little more, after the shit he'd put the rest of them through. Maybe it'd be enough to get even Fujiko to crack a smile. And Goemon, for that matter.

 

It was that or having to put up with that annoying self-satisfied look Lupin got whenever Jigen deigned to show the prick some gesture of good will. (It happened more often than Jigen would've liked to admit, which was probably why Lupin had gotten so cocky about it.) But sometimes, if Lupin was tired from one too may sleepless nights, or weak from some injury, or flat worn from one of his own impossible heists-- all the conceit would be drained from his eyes. And when Jigen was kind to him then (little, stupid, _simple_ things) the look changed entirely. There would be marvel in his eyes, like he'd just been presented with the world.

 

If Jigen went back to the bedroom, placed the folded rag on Lupin's forehead, removed his arm from his face-- would he see that tonight?

 

"Hey."

 

Fujiko was standing at the bathroom's threshold.

 

Unlike Jigen, Fujiko had changed into some nightwear before turning in. She had a specific word for the particular piece of clothing she donned tonight, he remembered that much, but he'd never remember the word itself-- pajama overalls is what they looked like. Her hair was still sleep-tousled, so at first Jigen thought her subdued presence was due to drowsiness from having just woken up. But her eyes were alert, if a bit guarded, as she frowned at him pensively.

 

Jigen stared, not knowing what exactly to make of her. "Hey?"

 

"Let's just get this over with," Fujiko sighed, beckoning his follow with a crook of her finger. "Come on."

 

A vein throbbed in Jigen's temple at her assumption that he would do just that, jumping to follow her direction-- muted only by the good mood now fleeting from his grasp like the cold water trickling through his fingers. Jigen debated ignoring her completely. But he could hear Goemon's voice coming from Lupin's room; the jackass would be fine for a few moments. And Jigen had to admit he was getting tired of his own bursts of rage. Maybe he could actually put it all to rest with one actual conversation.

 

He'd felt a bit bad for earlier. Crying women made him uncomfortable, and as much as he still didn't feel in the wrong for the stance he took, he honestly hadn't expected her to break down like that.

 

He left the rag on the counter, and followed Fujiko in silence.

 

She led the way outside, and nodded towards the path in back of the house that would take him into the preserved brush of the property. He trailed behind her, but hung back slightly, glancing back at the lit window where Lupin's room was.

 

"We shouldn't go too far," he said, feeling uneasy with every step. He knew it was just his paranoia acting up. But he still didn't want to chance it. "Hey. I said right here's fine. Hey."

 

Fujiko ignored him, continuing farther down the path.

 

"Hey, _Fujiko_!"

 

"You want to lower your voice?" she whispered sharply, finally turning to face him. "Or do you want to put all our drama on blast again?"

 

That…was a decent point. Dealing with Goemon's silent but judging glances all day had been an ordeal of its own. Now that Lupin was awake, anything but a unified front would allow him to deflect questions and detract the entire conversation; he was sly like that. Giving Fujiko another once over, he relaxed a bit more when he could see that she seemed more exhausted than angry. He could relate.

 

"What's this about anyway?" Jigen asked.

 

"Lupin said you had something to tell me," Fujiko said, chewing on her lip as she stared him down.

 

"Like what?"

 

"Hell if I know. What did you two talk about?"

 

 _Maybe none of your goddamn business--_ was on the tip of Jigen's tongue, but he clamped his jaw shut, still chasing the good mood he'd been in barely a couple minutes ago. Gave himself a minute to think it over. Neither he nor Lupin had even mentioned Fujiko. She had been the last thing on his mind, up until she cornered him in the bathroom and dragged him outside. Why would Lupin think they had anything to discuss? Unless he'd overheard their argument earlier that day after all, and was trying to push them into talking it over. But why be so beat-around about it?

 

Not nearly enough time had passed to digest that thought before a footstep had both he and Fujiko whirling around. He'd already had his magnum aimed before he registered that it was Goemon.

 

"Lupin requested that I follow you two, lest a fight ensue," the samurai explained as he calmly regarded them.

 

Fujiko and Jigen exchanged a perplexed glance.

 

"I mean, good call," she admitted, "but apparently we haven't even decided what we're fighting over."

 

Unease prickled at the back of Jigen's neck. "You said Lupin sent you?"

 

Right then, a gravelly murmur of an engine turning over caught their attention, followed by skimming tires seeking traction on the driveway's loose top layer of dirt-- the friggin' _car_! Jigen cursed, immediately taking a futile sprint back towards the house. Fujiko and Goemon were only half a step behind him in reaction time.

 

Goemon quickly overtook the pace of the other two, bounding up the side of a tree and leaping onto the roof. But for all his training, he would never beat out the accelerative power of a sport's vehicle. As soon as that sunk in, Jigen found himself preemptively slowing down. The samurai had lunged swiftly over the crest of the roof, and he could be heard shouting Lupin's name, but the only response was the revving of the berlinette quickly burning out by distance.

 

By the time Fujiko and Jigen had reached the house, Goemon had already come back in through the front door. And instead of promptly meeting their gaze-- his grim face stayed fixed on an innocuous piece of paper he'd only just begun picking up from the dining table.

 

Jigen snatched it furiously, still panting. Fujiko's breaths echoed his as she pushed in over his arm to have her own look, while it seemed Goemon had already derived enough of the message to not ask for it back.

 

 _Off running some errands~  
_ _Won't take long, so don't wait up!  
_ _Hugs and kisses,  
_ _Lupin_

 

The damp spot on Jigen's shoulder hadn't even dried yet.

 

He crumpled the note in his hand, a sickly broiling sensation in his gut and an ache throbbing in his ears; the same sensations from that maze of grimy back alleys in Santiago, endlessly weaving and scrambling and searching and shouting. Turning a corner, only to skid into an empty lot. Looping around, only to find Lupin pinned by Kashckov, without so much as a struggle.

 

_Lupin, what are you doing?_


	6. Rekindle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re·kin·dle  
> /ˌrēˈkind(ə)l/  
> _relight (a fire).  
> _revive (something that has been lost).

_What am I doing?_

 

Mint foam hit asphalt. Lupin squeezed some bottled water into his mouth and swished before spitting that out too, tapping his toothbrush against the side of the car. His stomach was rumbling, a wave of concentrated displeasure that carried all the way to his head. But the night breeze caught against his sweat, and he slumped out the open window to gather more of that cool air. Closed his eyes and focused on the Chanel 5 noted throughout the berlinette's interior.

 

He'd driven for maybe ten minutes before having to pull over, shove open his door, and retch the void of his guts out in the middle of the road. Managed to get another forty or so kilometers out before he had to pull over again, but on the bright side, he'd managed not to vomit that time. The entire drive had been hampered by his inability to keep his vision straight, and for a while he'd wondered if he'd ever make it. But at long last, he was back in Santiago.

 

The metropolis was a lot quieter than Lupin had braced for, what with the commotion they'd lit up before he dropped for the count. He could recall the endless wailing sirens, the rocking motion of the car. Pops must have been having trouble keeping jurisdiction if the place wasn't still on full lock-down. But how long ago had that even been?

 

He hadn't had the chance to ask the others, with their strained smiles like they'd almost forgotten how to in the time he'd been unconscious. That was how he knew precisely how much he'd cocked up this time. And it was all he could to do to assimilate back into character, win back Jigen's laugh, and Goemon's incredulity, and the devilish glint in Fujiko's eyes-- and even then, only in mere hints of what they could be, diluted by heavy gazes and wilted postures. Lupin pressed a palm to his face, snickering at how truly _un_ -funny he found it all. What more, they were all gonna _kill_ him after what he'd pulled.

 

That is, if a certain someone else didn't first.

 

Pain laced in his back.

 

Lupin wrenched his eyes open before the memory it stemmed from could replay, swallowing down the flurry of panic still attached. Fifteen freaking years after the fact, and time only found him with the same silly reaction to the same silly stimulus. Only now, he was a thirty-something suffering a roofie hangover, sitting inside a car he'd hijacked after sneaking past his well-meaning friends.

 

And then, the tooth-brushing? For what exactly?

 

(For _who_.)

 

Part of him reasoned that it was his professional values at work; he was, first and foremost, a _gentleman_ thief and needed to present as such. A more honest fragment at play in the back of his mind emphasized the amount of questionable choices he'd managed to make before the sun had even begun to rise.

 

Well. He wasn't the only one making those, at least.

 

Lupin looked up to gander the silhouette of the Gran Torre Santiago, jutting far past any neighboring skyscraper within vicinity. He wondered if the two eyes he'd meet at the top had already seen him arrive, and were watching him now. Blaue Blume, tucked into the chest pocket of his blazer, was pressing into his ribs.

 

He opened the driver-side door.

 

 

 

 

Santiago's arguably sole tourist trap was well past its closing hours, dark and devoid of life. At the tower's base, the shopping complex's security cams were focused on areas of anticipated foot traffic, money safes, and doorways-- pretty standard, made even simpler considering his goal wasn't even to steal anything. Lupin breezed past big brother, swiftly tapped and glitched footage lapses into the few cameras he couldn't avoid, and was able to find a decent amount of breathing time in between when taking the lifts up. Dizziness brought out the klutz in him, though he could at least feel more of his strength coming back as he interspersed bursts of movement with the short rests.

 

Lady Luck's whim would tell whether or not he'd need that strength upon reaching the top of the tower. He took the safety off his fully-loaded P38, just in case.

 

The interior brought him as far as the observation deck, the uppermost couple of stories open to the public. The space was dedicated entirely to viewing the city; glass spanned from floor to ceiling on all sides, smudged with handprints and breath stains. Lupin pondered briefly about taking the group up here. During the day, of course, when they'd be able to see farther out. Right now aside from the city's glow, all else contrasted to black. Hey, but there were a few scenic magnifiers near the windows for use. Maybe he'd be able to spot Pirque from--

 

Lupin was mid-step before he remembered why he was even here. Two-hundred and sixty-one meters above ground level wasn't high enough, if there were still meters to go.

 

The window plating continued overhead as a sun roof. One of the ceiling panels was hitched up.

 

A private invitation.

 

The remaining meters that lead to the tip of the tower consisted of a cage of support beams that pulled together an outer shell of separate glass reaches-- the Gran Torre's unique aesthetic to further distinguish it from other superstructures. The stretch of glass that stretched beyond the top floor bloomed with a shifting color display. At the very least, Lupin didn't have to work in the dark anymore.

 

Climbing higher than the sixty-second floor obviously wasn't the intention of the architect. Even with the mini hook-launch rig in Lupin's watch, forty meters was still a ways to go. His left hand was numb by fifteen meters, shoulder aching by twenty-five. Between that and having to maneuver himself for precise landings when the wire ran out, Lupin was back to being lightheaded by the time he reached the final girder, heart racing at an uneven pace. As he heaved himself upward against the centered metal beam, his head began throbbing with the same rhythm.

 

Goemon would chastise him for continuously shirking his training offers-- and then help pull him up. Windchill ran through the sweat in his hair, combatting the nausea he'd built up for all his efforts, and he thought about the cold rag Jigen might have brought back for him. The air was crisp this high up; there was breeze enough to clear away most of the city's smog, and as he stood upright, it swept right through his suit and carried away with it the last clinging remnants of Fujiko's perfume.

 

Suddenly, his feet slipped away from the girder and swung out against open air.

 

Lupin gasped as his full weight yanked down on his weakened upper body. Sweaty fingers slid against the bolted metal as he grasped for any kind of traction. _Shit, shit, shit--!_

 

Someone grabbed his arm, halted his fall.

 

Lupin looked up, and any remaining breath staled in his throat.

 

It was Kashckov who loomed above him. "You shouldn't have pushed yourself."

 

Kashckov didn't wait for a response, hoisting Lupin up. His other hand found the latter's waist, but Lupin was defenseless to his touch unless he wanted to instead endure a hundred-foot drop without a plan, and he didn't think he had enough wherewithal to come out of that walking. He let himself get pulled onto the metal beam, let Kashckov's arms loosely drape around him.

 

"I wasn't expecting you up for another day or so," Kashckov continued, the affection in his voice like a rash of heat over the skin it brushed. "But this is just like you."

 

Lupin's chest clenched, and he stayed bowed into the other man as he tried to will his head to stop spinning. He managed to finally suck in a breath, and found himself reeling at how much of Kashckov's scent had filled his lungs.

 

"Or was it that you had difficulty sleeping?" Kashckov's fingers had drifted around his shoulders, to his chest.

 

"On the contrary, sleeping was easy-- it was waking up that was the doozy." He forced a laugh. "And absolutely no coffee places open right now, can you believe it?"

 

"Oh? So you don't have trouble with nightmares anymore?"

 

"Everyone gets nightmares." Lupin swallowed at the lump forming in his throat. "But I can wake up from those."

 

The hands that had been skimming along his neck paused just under his collar. "You're not wearing it."

 

Petrification shot through Lupin's limbs. Kashckov pulled away slightly. The cold breeze flowed between them.

 

"Senka."

 

Lupin recoiled, scrambling backwards. He'd already reached into his jacket for the necklace, before consciously to stopping himself; he readjusted his hand immediately and pulled out his walther instead, centered the front bead to Kashckov's head, or. _Tried_. His vision shifted one way, his gun leaned to the other, like the building underneath him-- and the world around him-- was bending. He straddled the beam to keep from tipping over either side, and compromised with setting his aim on the overlap between Kashckov's doubling image.

 

"What's all this?" Awash in the seafoam glow of the tower's light fixtures, the latter's eyes crinkled with hints of crow's feet, and his lips curved slightly-- the barest hint of a smile. "You know I wouldn't hurt you. You know me."

 

He hadn't even taken out his own weapon, and Lupin's aim faltered all the more.

 

"It's been fifteen years, Kashckov." The surname that fell from his mouth somehow felt like a betrayal to himself, and he had to steel himself from the resulting stabbing sensation in his chest. Had to use the nausea churning behind his eyes as a reminder. "We don't know each other anymore. What you did…wasn't…."

 

"What did I do, _Lupin_?" Kashckov retorted, and the stabbing sensation from that was exponentially worse. "You're normally quite the chatterbox. Talk to me."

 

It gave Lupin a full-body itch, the way Kashckov kept nodding towards everything he could still recognize in him, and the way _Lupin_ was slowly coming to terms with how much fifteen years hadn't changed much about himself at all-- how the boy who had once loved Iosif Kashckov was otherwise still entirely intact. There was a small tremor at Lupin's core, but he promptly locked it up, and trained his similarly wobbling vision on the man before him. Focus. _Keep it together, goddammit._

 

"In the hotel room." Lupin had to construct the words one by one, throwing them a distance from himself to keep his head clear. "I passed out. Fujiko left. And you were there."

 

"Well. There wasn't time to do much." Kashckov began crawling forward along the girder, closing the distance between them. The blue of his gaze was more vividly abyssal than any memory could reconstruct. It was like glimpsing the edge of a liquefied universe, more ink than atmosphere, written there a story only two people in the entire world could retell by heart, the first few words of which had Lupin's stomach tying itself up in knots. "I dressed you to make things more expedient for your associates when they arrived to collect you, and then I had to leave quickly to follow after that Mine woman. That's all."

 

His shoulder pushed against the muzzle of the walther as he dipped in close again, gentle. Lupin's arms gave to pressure, and he fought the overwhelming urge to shut his eyes or look away. They were close enough now that the way hair framing Kashckov's face was tickling Lupin's cheeks. Despite the altitude's chill, Lupin felt himself grow hot. Despite everything else to direct his full attention to, his mind wandered and wondered if the mintiness in his breath was obvious.

 

"No one even uses actual roofies for date rape anymore." Amusement played across Kashckov's features.

 

Thrown off guard, Lupin quickly assumed an unbothered smile as he internally went over that night. There was so much blacked out. He remembered sensations, feelings, shadows and touches, but now that his head was a bit more clear, he was realizing those could just as well have been old memories resurfacing-- those tended to be awfully clear, especially on a bad day. And he hadn't remained stable long enough in the shower to check himself thoroughly. "Guess I'm behind the times on sexual assault."

 

"What is that, now? Disappointment?"

 

"Try skepticism. Only missed it by an entirely different category of emotion."

 

Kashckov's smile widened, but he finally pulled back. "Put the gun away, Arsène. And we'll talk."

 

He was standing up, turning away. Walking, each step reverberating throughout the metal beam. Immediately, Lupin aimed his walther at his retreating back: a white blazer with a ponytailed drip of ash blonde hair whisking slightly in the wind. _It'd grown out that long?_

 

Bitterness rose in his throat, and he wasn't sure how much of it was the roofie hangover and how much of it was just testament to how little fifteen years of absence mattered in the end. He clasped both hands tighter around his gun, focused on keeping the sights aligned.

 

He had a clear shot of him.

 

But the wind was cold, making his knuckles lock, making his hands shake. The gun was rattling. He clenched his teeth and forced a finger against the trigger.

 

He had a clear shot.

 

_"I will always love you."_

 

His vision split sharply in two again as pain flashed through his lower back. The next breeze had him falling forward, to his elbows with a resounding clunk against the metal beam. Lupin gasped for breath, trying to steady himself. Sweat was already beading on his forehead and he wiped it with the back of his sleeve, shuddering. Kashckov kept walking.

 

An unwanted, crooked sort of relief sprouted at the back of Lupin's mind.

 

He ended up holstering his walther, and took his time gathering himself, before going to join Kashckov at the north-face ledge.

 

 

 

 

 _A boy. His age, or at least his size. The only other kid he'd ever seen in person, up close like this at least. Crying and shaking, feet shifting upon the ledge of the balcony. He didn't want to startle him, but the scuff of his shoes against the roof's flat top gave him away. The boy looked up. Blue eyes, like dark dusk, regarded him_ with a smile. A hand was held up towards him upon his approach.

 

"A seat?" Kashckov was sitting atop the ledge, feet dipped into the start of a three hundred meter free-fall.

 

With anyone else, Lupin would've been able to crack a line about how this 'date' left a lot to be desired. But the standard repertoire sort of fell wayside when there was a chance of it actually being taken seriously. He shirked eye-contact. "You still spend whole nights like this?"

 

The hand dropped away, and Lupin steeled himself against wobble of his legs, unwilling to give away how much he actually probably could've used some support, what with the limited allowance for error when swaying precariously atop a skyscraper. But in his own opinion, he was faring pretty well, having balanced across the center beam on his own.

 

"There are some things that can't be willed off by time or effort. Things I've been unable change about myself." Kashckov inclined his head slightly, and Lupin tried not to think about how the lights embedded in the glass panels played off the defined jaw there. Quieter, he said, "I've wanted to _see_ you. I've missed you."

 

Lupin botched his cue to respond, by several counts. And then several more. He wasn't even sure if his unsteadiness at this point was still from his hangover, or purely nerves.

 

"You're a difficult man to track, Lupin the Third." Kashckov was now undoing the the buttons on his right cuff. "More difficult to keep under thumb for long. I knew if I wanted us to speak, I had to give you a reason to seek me out."

 

He rolled back the sleeve, to reveal Dooey adorning his wrist.

 

Seeing it again on drove the point that it was an unquestionable sister piece to Blume. Unlike the necklace, Dooey's appeal was founded in its unobtrusiveness. None of the sapphire cuts on the bracelet were any larger than the diamonds placed around them, and the jewels only played an enunciation to the surrounding patterns melded into the silver. It was designed lighter, more ergonomic, with the chainlinks moving fluidly, like smoke. But just like Blaue Blume, the colors suited Kashckov perfectly. The sapphires brought out his eyes.

 

The sleeve was pulled back down, and Lupin found himself meeting those eyes instead, an understanding of intent exchanged between the two of them.

 

Kashckov turned away first, tendrils of ash blond falling over his profile as he fixed his gaze on the city below, but not before Lupin caught his smile.

 

The next words Kashckov spoke came out whimsical, yet heavily melancholic. "I suppose in the end, you couldn't stop me from falling."

 

At once, all the old guilt squirmed under Lupin's skin. And a young voice broke free from the depths of his psyche, used his mouth to convey what feelings lay dormant there. "I never wanted you to fall. I wanted you to fly, remember? I wanted to show you the sky!"

 

He scoffed weakly in surprise after, amazed at the sincere ideal that rung out into the wind, and couldn't help but feel like what he should have done was cry as it carried off without even an echo. When he spurred himself to look, he saw that Kashckov was watching him, expression unreadable.

 

"Then indulge me," Kashckov dared him, begged him. "One last go. And let's see where we land."

 

His head still ached, albeit dully now. He still wasn't entirely balanced. And the old wound in his back was driving into him an argument in the form of a sunken round long-removed, pain that stayed even after he took out the bullet, and he never figure out for the life of him to remove _that_ \-- but now it was contested by a soaring feeling in his heart.

 

Clouded and overwhelmed, he found himself distantly asking, "How's the view?"

 

"It's no Burj Khalifa," Kashckov admitted, taking the change of topic in stride. "But how can I find something bad to say about the tallest superstructure in South America?"

 

Lupin remembered reading about the Burj Khalifa in the papers, both when its construction was announced, and after the contractors finished building it. Just like he remembered reading about Taipei 101 before it. And he had to fight the vociferous curiosity of what he would find if he went to scale them. On his own, by then. Both skyscrapers had been built only after--

 

"Willis Tower remains my favorite," Kashckov continued.

 

 _That?_ Lupin was already giddy from the memory. Nothing graceful or outrageously splendid-- they'd been stupid teenagers, and crashed a homecoming dance together in Chicago, stolen the school's statue after getting thrown out, and somehow managed to drunkenly tow it up the tower with them in the cold dead of night. He remembered standing breathless at the top of the tower, back then the tallest building in the world, hollering back against the blustering wind as it reprimanded their deeds like the proper parent neither of them ever had. He'd pressed himself into Iosif's side, laughing, shouting his lungs out over the frost-bitten city.

 

A breeze passed through, and Lupin shuddered as he came back to himself, standing alone.

 

Kashckov's eyes caught it. "Cold?"

 

"It _is_ Chile," Lupin quipped, shooting a sideways glance to help the emphasis. Then, after a beat, he broke into a full, startled grin. "Okay, hold it. Did you set that up for me?"

 

Kashckov snorted. "You really haven't changed."

 

Now _that_ was a rarity, seeing Iosif's goofy side. He was halfway to delivering a jibe about it, before he realized Kashckov was right. He really hadn't changed. He looked away, unsure of how to process that. How to take Kashckov's gentle stare. Again, Kashckov extended his hand. This time, Lupin found himself stepping forward, taking it.

 

Fingertips first. Then, Kashckov began curling his in, tugging Lupin slowly forward. Reflexively, Lupin curled his own fingers in response, until their hands were completely clasped. Lupin instantly recognized the feel of Iosif's broken index and middle fingers, the distinct curvature of his hand; but the splay of palm was wider, the skin rougher, swatches of hair on the knuckles, and he marveled at the differences and how they didn't affect what had remained the same.

 

Kashckov guided him down until they sat flush against one another. An arm slid around him, and all Lupin could think about was how _nice_ it was being held. Leaning his head on someone who didn't shoulder him off immediately. He snuck in touch when he could, but he'd found that most criminals weren't exactly cuddlers. He knew he was also excessively, invasively touchy, but. Damn, _wasn't_ it nice?

 

It wasn't as cold, like this.

 

Wasn't as _Chile_. Or Santiago, besides.

 

More Frankfurt--

 

Their first time scaling something so tall. Each egging the other on to cover up their own apprehension. Making it to roof, and sprawled over the top ceiling, breathless. Getting back up and climbing the antenna spire, reaching the tip just as daybreak crested over the horizon. Commezbank Tower.

 

More Minsk--

 

Promising a blood-covered Iosif that he was the best loot Lupin had ever stolen. Promising him not the world, but the _sky_. And Iosif seemed like he'd only barely been paying attention, until he finally looked Lupin in the eye and grabbed his hand, and Lupin could've brought down the moon for that boy right then. National library.

 

More Kuala Lumpur--

 

Climbing a pair of matching structures independently as a race, base-jumping from the top and colliding into one another on the fall down. Nearly dying from the delayed parachute deployment. Dodging security upon hitting ground and finding each other. Lupin had been in mid-sentence, speaking rapidly from adrenaline, going over the best escape route, and Iosif had taken him by the face and kissed him full on the mouth. Petronas Towers.

 

Rooftops and more rooftops, open skyline above, and Iosif at his side.

 

"I still love you." Iosif's voice pitched low with resolve. "I always have."

 

"Hey, you know I don't really…." _I don't think I_ do _love, not that way,_ said an old in the back of his head, but the last time he'd spoke those words…. And to this day, he knew how insensitive they came across-- how much sense they didn't make. "That part of me couldn't be willed away, either."

 

Iosif laughed, like he knew the punchline to a joke Lupin hadn't even realized he told. "Senka, why did you brush your teeth?"

 

As if that simply was the answer.

 

But then, Lupin couldn't come up with anything else to dispute it.

 

A thumb brushed against his lips. Iosif said, "I have a room."

 

 _Whoa._ "I should take off."

 

The arm around him wrapped tighter. "I think…you should put on the necklace. We'll match, now."

 

"Iosif--"

 

"Say 'yes', Senka."

 

And Lupin, who had never been able to say no to Iosif before, let himself be kissed.

 

 _Wasn't_ it nice?


	7. Ignite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ig·nite  
> /iɡˈnīt/  
> _catch fire or cause to catch fire.  
> _to give life or energy to (someone or something).

Human emotion was a terrible, wondrous phenomenon. It could facet as both one's greatest strength, and most staggering weakness-- simultaneously, at that. A ceaseless, fiery vortex, the barrage of which was wont to mounting overwhelmingly at the give of any arbitrary moment's caprice, making a kiln of the mind, an eater of sane thought and free will.

 

Ideally, one could allow themself a reaction only as far as to know it, sampling the onslaught and gauging the heat, and thereafter respond in accordance to _knowing_ as opposed succumbing to _feeling_. Battles were best won through discipline, and instinct carved through diligence of the former. But even so, in Goemon's experience, emotion was often too unknowable, too convoluted to deduce in the half of half-breath it took for an opponent's blow to land. Even the slightest inlet was all it took for a total collapse of defense. The best method then, perhaps, was to distance oneself from those whims entirely, eliminating all risk. Allowing the unknowable to be unknowable was a way of knowing it, in itself.

 

Goemon felt a fluctuation in the scape, and was standing even before the humming engine of the berlinette broke into his scope of hearing. Speaking of the unknowable….

 

The car pulled into the driveway. His vantage angle was too high to glimpse Lupin's face through the windshield, but he was able to note the whitened strain of Lupin's knuckles over the steering wheel. It was typical of Goemon to assume the 9-and-3 hand placements with an overstressed grip-- but he'd seen Lupin navigate a windy road with his teeth, maneuver through bustling traffic with a foot, and swing a heaving u-turn with his hips, and all performed in multitask because his hands were else occupied. Had the drug yet to run its course in entirety?

 

Goemon's fingers wrung taut around zantetsu at the indecent satisfaction that coursed through him then. Lupin had brazenly tossed aside the aid he'd been offered, and that deemed him unworthy of anymore of it. It appeared he was unharmed overall, and that was a sufficient state to be held accountable for his misbehavior.

 

Lupin spotted him and waved as he got out of the car, but Goemon was already turning away, dropping off the roof.

 

'We were worried.' The words lingered, tang in his throat. Still, it wasn't his place to speak them. He would leave that claim for Jigen. Or Fujiko.

 

It was safe to assume that both of them heard the vintage engine's loud rumble. But upon entering the living room, Goemon only found Fujiko standing at the mouth of the hallway, and she had all the air of someone barely containing a scream; a deep crease between her brows and a scowl line that told of the tumult beneath her poise. Jigen hadn't even bothered to enter the house, although smoking in the backyard meant he had certainly heard the car pull in. After a moment, Goemon saw a shadow rise and cross the rear patio, albeit with sluggish reluctance-- and stray wisp of smoke past the threshold told that the source had moved closer to the door.

 

Creaking called Goemon's attention to the front entryway again, where Lupin was shouldering his way in.

 

Bags ladened his arms, rustling plastic dangling from each hand in bunches with several more balanced precariously against his chest and tucked into place under his chin. He had to lean against the door to shut it.

 

"I said not to wait up," was Lupin's lowly address. He paused, eyes settling on Goemon, and then on Fujiko, and then onward still searching behind them. A sort of...wilt in his voice that nearly won some reason for sympathy. Nearly.

 

Fujiko was not deterred. "Don't worry about that, lover. We tucked ourselves in right after you left. Losing sleep over you? It got old after the first couple of nights."

 

"No way. I thought it'd take at least a week before that went out of style." An irritating smile quirked at Lupin's lips. "Look at me, barely keeping up with the latest trends."

 

"It would be more accurate to say that _we're_ the ones barely keeping up," Goemon grit out. "Although the fault for said point is not ours."

 

"That's true."

 

The immediate nonresistence threw Goemon's resolve off-balance. Upon renewed glance, he thought Lupin's smile had a note of melancholy to it. But the note just as soon vanished as the latter turned away.

 

Lupin was shuffling slightly. One of the many bags he carried slid free from the entangled loops of the other handles. This one was noticeably different from the rest in that it was a cylindrical hardcase; it was colored beige at the base, with a yellow and grey striped lid, and its handle was of polyester weave, stark against the uniform white plastic of the bundled goods beside it. Lupin deposited it on the floor between the couch and the coffee table and then proceeded past Goemon and Fujiko without any word about it.

 

There was an unsteadiness to his gait.

 

Again Goemon had to wonder if the drug had yet been spent from Lupin's system, or if it was just the weight he was heaving that was throwing his steps off-balance. Nonetheless, neither Goemon nor Fujiko made any move to help him.

 

"I'll take my key back now, Lupin," Fujiko declared once the bags were settled on the dining room table. "The one to _my_ car."

 

Lupin retrieved the item from his pocket and tossed it to her. "Done, fair lady."

 

"Not quite. My bracelet?"

 

"Ah, right-- listen-- about that…."

 

" _About_ that," Fujiko echoed tersely, raising an eyebrow.

 

"It's a work in progress."

 

Goemon realized it then. "Kashckov is not dead."

 

The kiln within him roared. Zantetsu's heft stemmed from his grip, restless.

 

Beyond the open backdoor, Goemon once more noted the movement of shadows: a stubbed cigarette falling, a foot pestling it churlishly into the cement.

 

"He wanted to pose a challenge," Lupin went on with flippancy as he began unpacking the plastic bags. Savory steam leaked from the styrofoam containers he was piling onto the table; it had become apparent that his intention was to soften their anger with food. "Last night was just to consult terms, and yadda-yadda-yadda, I'm supposed to filch Dooey off him. No biggie."

 

"Care to run that by me again?" Fujiko twirled the keychain around her finger once before clutching it tight in her hand. "Because I completely missed the part where you didn't shoot Kashckov on _sight_."

 

"See section: yadda-yadda-yadda."

 

Lupin began leaning heavily with one hand to the kitchenette counter, while continuing to unload the rest of the plastic bags. These ones didn't hold styrofoam containers. There were fresh vegetables, fruit, rice, and Goemon's eyes immediately locked onto a few bright-colored packages in Japanese writing-- _groceries_. Not that their appetites had been spectacular of late, but the fridge had been erring on the side of devoid of contents.

 

It was all the more abhorrent that Lupin thought he could distract them from the matter at hand by making a show of these purchases. Still, Goemon was more annoyed at himself for allowing the slightest bit of gratitudes slip on behalf that Lupin thought to buy Japanese food specifically for him.

 

"First off, that elephant in the room that no one wants to address?" Lupin remarked, as if he was recounting something he'd seen on television. "Plot-twist: It never existed. He didn't do anything, so we can all breathe easy again. Talk about great news, right? Who else was ready for a pick-me-up?"

 

"Last I checked, with sober clarity might I add, _you_ were utterly wasted that night." All the lilt had fallen from Fujiko's tone. Her hands became rigid with tension, painted nails digging into her arms. Her scowl line grew ever deeper. "So is this what you remember, or is it what _he_ told you when you were 'consulting terms'?"

 

"Fujicakes, Fujicakes…. He had to tail you and wait for an opportunity to steal Dooey. There was no time for a love scene. All he did was put clothes _on_ me, and make it less awkward for Goemon and Jigen to drag me out of the room." A pause. Then, "No one even uses actual roofies for date rape anymore."

 

That dispelled nothing. There were many tools to any given trade; a kill still constituted as a kill, no matter the poison picked; there were more ways to burn than by open flame. Further, timing barely held factor as Kashckov had access to Jigen's GPS tracking, and therefore had plenty leisure to delay giving chase to Fujiko's trail.

 

Goemon exchanged a glance with Fujiko, and upon her return of it he knew he wasn't alone in bafflement.

 

She broached, cautious and gentle, "Lupin. Darling. Did you look yourself over at all? After…?"

 

"After what? The _Not_ -Rape? C'mon, I said I'm fine. How about all this food? I picked up a little something for everyone, but try not to gorge yourselves-- no one wants to deal with tummy trouble." Lupin chuckled, but his face looked paler now. His gaze was stuck on a squash he was rolling along the countertop. Actually, now that the bags were no longer weighing him down, there shouldn't have been any reason for him to slouch so heavily against the counter.

 

Goemon steeled himself against the consequent rise of concern. Conceding to just that was what had allowed Lupin to dodge confrontation the last time. Allowed him to seek audience alone with Kashckov. "I am eyeing the rabbit, in particular."

 

"That's…weird. Because I didn't get any. Because since when have you ever eaten--"

 

"The ill-advised, foolhardy rabbit," Goemon imposed over him, "thinking itself clever for slipping beyond its pen as it bounds headlong from what keeps it safe against being preyed upon."

 

"Wait, _I'm_ the rabbit? You do remember I'm Lupin the freaking Third, right? That kind of rep warrants at _least_ a predator-tier contemporary, if not apex."

 

"Sooner might the true Lupin the Third better perceive a threat to his well-being. Wiser would Lupin the Third be in the face of indicative aggressions. I fail to see such traits in the simple-minded, easy prey that walked into the den of the wolf this morning. And perhaps I paid too good a kindness, for even a _rabbit_ will recognize trouble and take precaution."

 

An astonished smile crept across Lupin's face, and he whistled low. "Well, damn. Goemon's out here playing hardball. Fujiko's showing overt concern. And _Jigen_ is the one person not up my asshole right now. What slightly uncharacteristic action do _I_ get to portray?"

 

" _Excuse you_!" Fujiko's voice lashed out like a whip, cracking across the walls in its sharpness. "You've spent the past few days practically comatose, but the rest of us didn't get that privilege, and you have absolutely no goddamn _clue_ what it's been like. So newsflash, you selfish prick: _we_ pulled _your_ ass out of the fire."

 

Her outburst called Goemon back to himself. His thumb had pressed into zantetsu's hilt, but he doused the urge with a slow breath and let Fujiko shout his feelings.

 

"While you were passed out, we had no idea what was going on, and we _still_ don't, and we're _still_ here putting up with your vague crap, with no payday in sight! Maybe try showing some class and give credit where it's due!"

 

"…That's actually perfect," Lupin said. "Dead-on slightly uncharacteristic for me."

 

Never had there been an individual so appalling, Goemon was certain.

 

Fujiko took a forceful step forward, hand raised-- before halting in the midst of her next footfall. The hand curled into a tight fist as she brought it down to her side, heaving a tattered sigh. "This shit is not cute, Lupin."

 

"Guessing you're not even gonna touch the food then?"

 

"Go to hell!" She was turning on her heel, storming from the dining area.

 

In the wake of her billowing hair as she fled, Goemon met Lupin's gaze. The latter had two hands pressing most his weight into the counter now, but he grinned like he was merely being lazy, despite the wavering focus of his eyes.

 

"Y'know, one of those bins has okonomiyaki," Lupin mentioned cheerfully. "Extra katsuobushi for my favorite samurai~"

 

Any further attempts to admonish him would be futile, so Goemon conceded to his will as Fujiko had. "It is scarce past noon. We have all not long since eaten lunch."

 

"If you say so, but we both know it's not as good after it's been fridged."

 

He pushed off the counter, and his knees wobbled immediately. Lupin groped shakily for the dining table as he began swaying forward, and Goemon nearly moved to help him-- would have, if another figure hadn't gotten there first.

 

"I'll handle it," Jigen grumbled, pushing Lupin back into the counter as he moved into the dining space. "You're gonna drop something."

 

"Ye of little faith!" But there was an undeniable renewed keenness to Lupin's demeanor.

 

Jigen's voice remained cold. "Yeah, almost like the bulk of it snuck out behind my back without a word."

 

"Aww, Jiji~ were you scared I wouldn't come back?"

 

"Lupin...sit your narrow ass down somewhere and shut _up_. Before I really lose my patience."

 

Surprisingly, Lupin fell quiet. The room instead was filled with the squeak of styrofoam and crinkle of plastic as Jigen re-stacked the food containers, making a point not to further acknowledge Lupin's presence. Under the rim of his hat, his mouth set a thin, unmoving line across his features. Lupin's gaze had drifted, grown distant, but he was relaxed now, as if he were simply enjoying the moment. As if he had somehow paradoxically found his peace in the evident tumult between them. Ever the unknowable, Goemon relented. He would let it be.

 

Finally, Lupin left them with, "I need a shower."

 

The one good grace Goemon was loath to acknowledge was that it hadn't escalated to a shouting match. Verbal altercations with Lupin very rarely did; he only raised his voice if he'd already obviously lost, a weak dog barking loud while the other party observed in receptive smugness. It rung as true in the opposite vein, wherein Lupin's proximity to victory could be measured in his ease.

 

But this victory should have counted as one for the whole of them-- Lupin, after all, had come back. (Although Goemon was beginning to doubt his earlier assumption that the former was unscathed. (Tremor in his ankles. Rigidity in his stride. A nod and smile at Goemon in passing-- _the rabbit retreats back into the hedges, home but yet to be properly contained_ \-- sweat beaded at his temple as if even that was at the cost of much effort.)) But the battle was over, before any of them had a chance to act, before any of them could fathom the rules or the game being played.

 

"You refuse to speak with him." Goemon didn't bother shaping the words into a question.

 

"Did we not get an earful of the same cock 'n' bull runaround?" Jigen sneered, holding the refrigerator door open with a foot as he gathered up the styrofoam boxes on the dining table. "If _Fujiko_ couldn't reel him in, then…. He's beyond _us_ , I'll tell you that much."

 

"I disagree."

 

Jigen hands twitched visibly on the side of the refrigerator, but to his credit, he refrained from raising his voice. "Then he's all yours. Me? I can't keep up with his fucked up maso-fetishes anymore."

 

Still inconsolable. But there was some significance to be found in his newfound restraint, in how all the tension had somehow dissipated.

 

"Hey, by the way, have you seen the ashtray I keep on the coffee table? The green one-- glass? Went missing earlier today."

 

"No."

 

"Alright. Well, thanks for nothing."

 

Odd that a sense of normalcy seemed to have already begun settling back into place so easily, despite the new misshape that none of them could quite identify and call to name-- nigh undetectable, like a stranger's fingerprint on one's personal artifice, the certainty that it was not as it had been left.

 

Goemon was tempted to concede to the much-needed calm, were he not bothered by the feeling something else of theirs had been tampered with. Therein laid their defeat.

 

 

 

 

The rhythm of Fujiko's nails clacking on the keyboard is what greeted him upon entry. The same pattern of keys, over and over, as she filtered through all her limited intel again. The same repetition as the rest of them-- Jigen when he flicked his lighter open and shut, Goemon as he balanced his inhales with his exhales in meditation-- plagued by the same questions and frustrated by the void of some insufferable man's deflections, pushed on by the underlying certainty of something amiss.

 

"Thoughts?" he asked her, outright after she hadn't taken notice of him standing in her room.

 

"I barely know what to think anymore," Fujiko muttered in response, barely offering a glance through her lowered lashes. There was a lit cigarette between her fingers, and she flicked it into a green ceramic ashtray next to the laptop on her bed. Ah. "He _seems_ mostly okay. Okay enough to piss me off. But I also want to say that he knows exactly what he's doing-- make enough funnies, and the situation doesn't seem so serious, right? I don't know."

 

"Jigen had warned us of this outcome."

 

"Don't remind me." Fujiko glowered. "It's like _he_ wants this to be difficult, too. If it had been all three of us, we might've gotten somewhere."

 

"Perhaps." Goemon has reservations on that, though. He could better imagine the conversation further derailing if Lupin had riled both Jigen and Fujiko to anger in the same room.

 

"The way Lupin just strutted in, clowning around like always…. It made it feel like the past few days really weren't a big deal. But how it all went down, how Lupin was so out of sorts, and _Kashckov_ \-- it's not just me, is it? It felt like he was in real danger." Fujiko took a drag, turning to squint her eyes at her laptop. As far as Goemon knew, no new information had turned up, and she had been resigned to studying the same bits of limited text. The death of an adolescent boy from Belarus. His family tree, giving away nothing except an end to the Kashckov line. A few background documents delving into distant relatives. She sighed out smoke, without any attempt to direct the stream towards the open window.

 

"Lupin gave no ground, and had possessed advantage at the onset. We proceeded with low expectations of success." Goemon cleared his throat. "And it was not just you. I too remember the gravity of what transpired."

 

"Thank god. And here I was, within an inch of launching myself across the room and throttling him. The only reason I didn't...." She paused, hand halting mid-weave of fingercombing her hair. "You notice he was off?"

 

"He appeared very exhausted."

 

"Did he?" Fujiko frowned, looking up, and the curiosity in her eyes reflected Goemon's own reaction at finding they had discerned separate things, further validating one another's sense of unease with the situation. Her mouth became a pensive moue. "He _did_. I didn't even realize. I wonder if he's slept at all yet. This might give us the upperhand-- put the pressure on before he has time to rest. Ugh, I don't even want to _look_ at him right now, honestly…. But we can use that."

 

"And the nuance that caught your attention?" Goemon prompted.

 

"What? Oh. Just an afterthought. Not nearly as helpful as your tidbit." When Goemon continued to stare her down quietly, she raised an eyebrow and took another drag before elaborating. "He didn't reach for anyone, at any point. Normally, he's rolling around in someone's lap, begging for attention. You know how it is."

 

Goemon hesitated. "I do not. You and he have a different relationship as opposed to how he acts towards Jigen and I."

 

Fujiko scoffed, side-glance full of skepticism. "He's literally like that with all of us. Just because you and Jigen are stiffs who don't reciprocate, it doesn't discount the fact that Lupin's a cuddle slut."

 

It also didn't discount the fact that Lupin was much more the so-called 'cuddle slut' around namely Fujiko, but Goemon left this unsaid. He didn't want to further contribute to the divides that had manifested between the four of them in such short notice.

 

Lupin _could_ be rather affectionate towards Jigen as well, now that Goemon dwelled on it-- even when most attempts of which were rebuffed, there still were times when Jigen welcomed it. They weren't nearly as conspicuous as Fujiko and Lupin's displays, yet they still occurred more frequently than, say… _Goemon_ and Lupin's. Lupin might as much intrude on Goemon's personal space, but these were things the samurai never found necessary to react to, much less 'reciprocate', much less call to memory.

 

What did that make evident of their relationship? Goemon never considered this before, but the question had a bite he hadn't expected.

 

Something snagged in his mind then-- something like a bell's chime-- _a rustle in the brush_ \-- interrupting that trail of thought. A distant tug that he was familiar enough with.

 

"Where are you off to?"

 

"The bathroom."

 

"I think Lupin's still in there," Fujiko called after him.

 

"I know."

 

 

 

 

His instinct was correct.

 

Lupin turned sharply when the door opened, but seemed less tense when he saw it was Goemon. "We oughtta stop meeting like this. What if we get found out~?"

 

This time, Lupin had at least managed to shut off the water and not knock anything from the shelf. An improvement from the first time he'd found him fallen down-- but it was once again disconcerting to find him sprawled on the shower tile, struggling to rise.

 

Goemon's response held less humor. "I will fetch Jigen."

 

"Whoa, wait, no-- don't do that. You saw how mad he was out there. This'll just gonna tick him off even more." The lament in his voice came as a surprise, considering his earlier nonchalance.

 

Goemon at first considered letting him know that he had not even seen the worst of it, that Jigen's mood actually improved noticeably since Lupin left, but then also concluded a bit of penance would do well to keep Lupin from any more impulsive acts in the future. He said, "None of us have had much reason for cheer. Your antics of late serve only to vex."

 

"Everyone hates me right now-- gotcha. Thanks for the status report." Lupin snickered and he slicked his wet hair back from his face. "I'll only be a few more minutes in here, then it's all yours."

 

But Goemon had already closed the door behind him, crossing the small distance to the shower to stoop low on a knee. At any rate, he was sure that even if he tried to call Jigen in, the latter would simply refuse.

 

"Wow, what a pal," Lupin murmured cheerily..

 

"Lupin…," Goemon said, unsure of how to proceed once he was hovering over him.

 

"I'm not gonna flip out like last time, if that's what you're worried about. My head's clear now."

 

He could argue a fair amount against that point, but he chose not to. Instead, he moved slowly, ducking underneath one of Lupin's arms, while curling his own under the ridge of Lupin's ribcage. _A rabbit must be coaxed from hiding, not dragged out._

 

That might have been the problem the last time. He'd entered the bathroom, seen Lupin on the ground, and in a flash of dread he rushed forth to help him up. Never would he have predicted such a frantic reaction. Goemon thought he had hurt him at first, from how violently he'd flinched away, tried to scramble back only to slide against the wet tile, and looked at Goemon with unfamiliar, panic-stricken eyes.

 

Never would he have thought he'd ever clarify, _"Lupin, I will not hurt you."_

 

Or wait a full moment before Lupin collected himself, eyes still dazed as he forced out both his laugh and his agreement. _"I know, I know. I_ know _\-- I just…got surprised having you so close. You're not usually this huggy."_

 

What excuse might he have used if Goemon _was_ more 'huggy'? If he'd indulged Lupin's tactility more in the past.

 

And still, the moment had lingered on after, in the tight breaths following, in Lupin's refusal to meet Goemon's eyes. Goemon had long decided then that he rather disliked Kashckov, in lieu of viewing him solely as the opponent, a foe by circumstance-- but the personal disdain only grew.

 

Suffice to say, this latest attempt was already running much smoother. Lupin readily leaned against him, holding fast as Goemon hefted him up; strength had returned to his arms. The trouble seemed to come from Lupin's legs, favoring awkward positioning that warranted the least amount of movement and weighed him down.

 

"Have you sustained injuries?" Goemon asked, catching Lupin's grimace as he was placed atop the toilet lid. "To your lower body?"

 

"No. Why would--?" Lupin's voice clipped abruptly. He was quick to turn away, but Goemon was still aware of the curious flush of red creeping over his neck. "I-I'm just tired."

 

_The rabbit crouches low, flattens its ears from view._

 

Goemon granted him a bit of time to recollect himself, turning away to pull a towel from the rack. But when he turned back around, Lupin was still looking at the ground. Or, perhaps…. Goemon held the towel in Lupin's direction and waited. No response. He was no longer avoiding Goemon's gaze, but instead, lost in thought.

 

He broke from the reverie with a startled yelp as the towel was flung over his head. Goemon placed his hands on either side of Lupin's head, gently kneading the towel into Lupin's wet hair, just as he'd done before. And just as before, Lupin immediately relaxed into the touch with a hum of contentment. Before Goemon had brushed it off due to the drug. Now…. ' _Cuddle slut_ ,' Fujiko supplied at the back of his mind.

 

Hadn't she always initiated contact to easier sway Lupin to her bidding?

 

"There is no hatred harbored here," he announced, suddenly needing to make sure Lupin knew that much, now that he could make him listen. "Exasperation, more like."

 

Lupin stilled, but otherwise didn't make any attempt to pull away. After a minute, he reached up place his hand over one of Goemon's, peeking up from under the towel with a smile. "I'm okay now. I can do this on my own."

 

Goemon held his gaze, because he knew at once they were speaking of more than merely towel-drying hair, and he made an oath: "I will remain nearby."

 

Lupin squeezed his hand, and Goemon allowed him some privacy.

 

_Leave some food out, a reason for the rabbit to lower its guard. And then, leave it be._

 

For now.

 

 

 

 

It may be that physical contact had never been a factor between the two of them, for words were how they'd meet. It was Lupin after all who had been the one to fastest acclimate to Goemon's formal way of speaking in the beginning, immediately taking to-- and even seeming to delight in-- the analogies and avidly catching the meanings Goemon emphasized within the gaps between words. At first, it had been a constant construction and deconstruction of language between them, a subtle challenge of puzzles passed like secretive notes under the guise of small talk.

 

Fujiko had caught on none too far behind, her own speech innately layered with double entendre. Her lag only existed for her unfamiliarity with Goemon's preference for certain diction deemed obsolete by modern standards.

 

Jigen was the most literal of all of them, and it had meant that many of Goemon's earlier conversations upon first making proper acquaintance with the gunman had run quite short. But there was a certain contentment to be found in that they never needed many words between them. And Goemon had only respect for that kind of rare, forthright honesty.

 

So when he found him peering into the opened round case Lupin had dropped off by the coffee table earlier, he said nothing, and let Jigen be silent in turn.

 

Before he could take his leave, however, Jigen spoke up. "How is he?"

 

"A sharpshooter's eyes should glean any detail the rest of us miss. You would do better to observe him for yourself." It wasn't merely another try at goading Jigen to action. Goemon was somewhat unwilling to act as a convenient messenger as he wasn't sure how much more of Jigen's surliness he himself could stand. If Lupin's return could improve the other's mood this much, it was worth pushing their interaction. Goemon nodded to the opened case in Jigen's lap. "Is it to your liking?"

 

Jigen grunted, planting the lid back over the top of the case. "Ostentatious garbage. He was shopping with himself in mind."

 

But had he disliked it, he would have stated so plainly. The case remained on his lap.

 

Goemon contemplated outright telling Jigen about Lupin's current state. It might provide the motivation Jigen needed to approach the other man. Conversely, Lupin might have had the better idea that such a thing would only bring Jigen displeasure.

 

He wasn't given enough time to deliberate, as he heard Fujiko and Lupin's voices coming from down the hall, rising in volume-- Fujiko's from vexation, and Lupin's from…levity? Then, the sound of footfall hastily jaunting closer.

 

"Calling a vote!" Lupin announced as he appeared in the living room. He was tugging on his red blazer with a refreshed manner. "I move that today is hereby declared a worry-free Fun Day. All those in favor, say 'aye'!"

 

Goemon looked to Jigen to see if he had somehow missed something to purport that they knew what he was talking about. When Jigen only shrugged back, Goemon turned to Fujiko who'd followed in after Lupin.

 

"Apparently Mr. Disappearing-Act wants to go 'sightseeing'," she stressed, eyes shifting between Goemon and Jigen.

 

Not one of them bought it. More likely, Lupin intended to settle his matter with Kashckov.

 

"That is permissible," Goemon stated, and he noted the surprise on Jigen and Fujiko's faces before he added, "so long as I accompany you."

 

Fujiko made a noise of discontent, flinging her hand open by way of demanding explanation. "And you guys are going off the assumption that I'll just let you take my car? Is this with or without me?"

 

"Of course with you!" Lupin said. "I mean, the whole idea was that we all went together."

 

This time, Goemon joined Jigen and Fujiko's surprise.

 

Lupin shot a grin at Jigen. "There's a suit that goes along with that hat I got you. Needs to be picked up, after final measurements."

 

"Count me out," Jigen grumbled, leaning back on the couch to indicate his objective to settle there indefinitely. "If there's no work, then I'm officially on vacation, and in sore need of time to my friggin' self."

 

"I'll only go if Jigen goes," Fujiko pledged in an odd turn of events, though it may have been out of pure spite. Not that Goemon would argue against it at this time.

 

Jigen sat up straight. "What the _hell_ \--?"

 

"We will all go," Goemon confirmed.

 

Jigen turned his gawking features to Goemon, the look in his eyes akin to something like betrayal. Goemon matched it with an icy gaze, silently willing his cooperation. He was owed some degree of reverence for all the misdirected emotions polluting the integrity of his peace of mind. Jigen recognized this, and let out a coarse sigh. The two of them had never needed many words between them, after all.

 

Goemon reiterated, more force in his voice, "We will _all_ go."

 

 

 

 

The car ride was surprisingly peaceful. Fujiko and Jigen were maintaining a relative truce of sorts, possibly for lack of anything to say to one another. Jigen had delegated Lupin to the back. And as if finally holding regard for their cumulative mood, Lupin settled quietly next to Goemon, busying himself on his phone for the majority of the drive, speaking only to convey directions to Fujiko.

 

But once they arrived at their first destination, he became… _obnoxious_.

 

Goemon possessed base knowledge of the Plaza de Armas, and while it was pleasing enough to the eye, and held reverence in historical value, he did not think it warranted Lupin's dramatics. The latter behaved all the part of a conspicuous tourist, winning every kind of glance, as he pranced over the grounds, trying to rouse the same excitement from their group. One would have never suspected him of going outside often, much less having traveled to every corner of the world.

 

"Zenigata could probably fit a whole fleet of cop cars here!" Lupin hollered to them across the way, effectively drawing the attention from the whole of the people-filled square.

 

All three doggedly pretended to have no affiliation with him.

 

Even as they entered the city's venerated Cathedral adjoining the plaza, Lupin didn't tone his echoing, boisterous voice down despite their (not to mention, _strangers'_ ) attempts to shush him. Instead his noise filled the cavernous venue, again prompting the others to keep distance lest someone associate his crassness with them. A few tourists shirked the building out of second-hand embarrassment. Goemon remained close to the entrance to blend with the statues there. Farther along, by the middle pews, he saw Fujiko avoiding notice by ducking by one of the grand carved pillars that stretched from ceiling to floor.

 

Jigen was accosted by the alter, Lupin attempting to take a posed self-taken picture of the two of them together, but the former was not complying.

 

"Quit being a buzzkill!" Lupin laughed, tipping backwards against him. "When was the last time we got to do something like this? Who knows when the next could be!"

 

"Christ almighty, piss _off_ ," Jigen said, shoving him away.

 

Goemon felt haunted by the rabbit comparison he'd earlier made-- as if he'd somehow bestowed Lupin with all the hyperactivity of said bounding critter. Because this gusto did not die down as they progressed through a sightseeing itinerary. Multiple museums, the city observatory, a few shanty neighborhoods to observe the local art…even Goemon was beginning to regret volunteering to accompany him. Other than behaving as a public embarrassment, he kept his phone in hand, capturing both photos and videos of their group in the most mundane acts, and then keeping his eyes glued to the phone screen to look over the footage.

 

The silver lining in Lupin's over-exuberance was that it stole a lot of attention, attention that might have instead been directed in Goemon's direction for his choice of traditional dress.

 

Among his reasons for avoiding public spaces were the stares, and filtering the curious questions about his attire. He especially wanted to avoid conversation while here. Goemon had thought himself decent in Spanish, until arriving in Chile. Sentences were chopped, conclusive particles were changed entirely-- the country's iteration on Castilian was a wholly different manner of speaking. Naturally, Fujiko and Lupin hadn't taken long to adjust. Jigen, when he needed to, at least possessed the brashness to force the conversation to slow to a pace he could register and process. Goemon simply opted not to speak.

 

On a whim, Lupin had them stop the car so he could get out and gander at an arbitrary metal lattice bridge. A street sign told Goemon that the bridge ran along a road called Purisima.

 

Fujiko appeared to have given up entirely on finding enjoyment in the expedition. Goemon caught sight of her sidling away from them. He would have let her leave; he felt no need to add to her displeasure.

 

Jigen was the one who called out to her. "Where the hell are you going? We parked on the other side."

 

"Silly me," she muttered, face red. She must have been more furious than she was trying not to let on.

 

Not missing the attitude in her tone, Jigen stared at her with reproach. She met his gaze full on, and Goemon glanced between them, deliberating between intervening or allowing them to settle their own feud. If he allowed it to escalate, would Lupin finally see how much they'd been affected by the situation regarding Kashckov? Would Lupin reconsider his approach then? But then, the two simply broke eye-lock. Jigen went to lean against the bridge railing, while Fujiko approached Lupin.

 

"Are we done here?" she huffed.

 

Lupin didn't look up right away. He'd been so focused on his phone screen, that when he finally dragged his eyes away he came across as surprised to find Fujiko there. "Uh...?"

 

"This is a _bridge_ , Lupin. What are we doing?"

 

"Huh, should be just about time. Hey, Jigen!" Lupin cupped his hand around his mouth. "You wanna pick up your brand spankin' new suit?"

 

"No, I want this shitty field trip to be over with," Jigen shouted back.

 

"I hear you, but bear with me-- we'll be done after a few more stops. I don't know what you guys were expecting. Is anyone else here to enjoy Santiago, or is it just me?" As he was met with three heavy stares, an addendum was quickly made: "Rhetorical! Obviously!"

 

It was during the drive to Lupin's tailor of choice that Goemon spied a castle from a cresting point in the highway. Its brickwork spoke hues of autumn leaves, stark against the grass green hill it embellished, and starker still against the modern architecture of the circumambient buildings neighboring its plot.

 

"Figures you'd lock onto that," Lupin said, leaning over to partake in the sight. "Castillo Hidalgo. You can book events, tours…. Not a bad place for a romantic rendezvous. Wanna check it out after this?"

 

Goemon declined with a head shake. While he wasn't yet on the tier of irritation as Fujiko and Jigen were, he'd ultimately found their outing to be fruitless, and wondered why Lupin had chosen to waste time like this. Was the true intention simply to sightsee after all?

 

Before Lupin could pull back into his own seat, Goemon saw that his phone wasn't displaying the gallery of copious footage taken during the day, as he'd expected, but a white screen full of words. Before he could distinguish properly, the phone was beyond his field of vision. It hadn't even looked like a map or directions, as Goemon had before seen one of his colleagues use to navigate their way through an unknown city.

 

Lupin had been reading something. A novel, or perhaps an article. It would resolve why he'd been so attached to his phone all day, and better believed than him being so absorbed in pictures and videos.

 

But why immerse himself in else when he was the one so enthralled by touring Santiago? Then, perhaps he was looking up more destinations for their itinerary…. At that thought, Goemon slumped wearily in his seat. He had the egging temptation to ask Fujiko to allow him along the next time she tried to flee, before quashing it. Had he not made an oath to Lupin? Was he not a stronger man than this?

 

He meditated on this. Meditated deeper, when both Fujiko and Jigen's tempers flared to the point of all but openly lashing out at each other, Lupin, Santiago, and sightseeing in general.

 

Apparently, the commissioned tailor was located on a street partially closed to vehicular travel, and it took no small amount of detours before they were able to find said boutique.

 

 

 

 

Predictably, patience and energy had worn thin with the trip by the time they parked in the lot for the Costanera Center. Enough so that each of them responded with an audible groan, curse, and sigh as outcry when Lupin insisted they take a photo in front of the building.

 

To their chagrin, Lupin was already waving over a local to take their picture. The older woman seemed amused at first, gesturing for them to stand closer as she held his phone in their direction. Only after given a chance to fully mind their disposition did she become unsure; nonetheless, she took the picture. She made a concerned remark to Lupin that made Fujiko snort without humor. Lupin merely sent her off with a smile and a quick kiss on the cheek that caught Goemon off guard before he remembered it a Latin American custom.

 

Now that he contemplated the casual nature of such a touch, it was a French custom as well. Could that be part of why Lupin was so tactile?

 

"Aaand we win grand prize for most awkward photograph ever. _None_ of you smiled?" None of them responded. At last cowed by their lack of enthusiasm, Lupin lowered his phone. "Alright, fine, let's just go inside." But he was still looking at it as they entered the building.

 

Out of all the places they'd visited that day, the Gran Torre was by far the most crowded, forcing them to weave between clusters of people through whatever give was available.

 

Fortunately, Lupin decided against selling them on the bustling shopping center at ground level. After a few swift transfers between stairwells, escalators, to the main elevator shaft, Goemon could deduce that they were headed to "Sky Costanera", the observation deck that lay at the top levels of the building. The way Lupin navigated a route with ease, one might have thought he'd already been here once. It wasn't a far-fetched concept, considering how much of his past they'd been unaware of.

 

Although the lower level of the deck would have sufficed, Lupin of course insisted they view from the very top floor. And of course, the top floor was sprawling with a heavier crowd of tourists.

 

Goemon was about to abandon the idea of attempting to get anywhere close to one of the spanning windows. But then a large group of youths began peeling away from the western stretch with a raucous, herded along by a handful of tired-looking adults. In their wake, a wide section of cleared glass pane. He wasn't the only one with intent to take up the newfound space; already others were packing in. A saving grace appeared in form of a family of four, the parents crouched over the children; Goemon stood behind them, and through the patches of oil smudges left from many hands, he finally beheld the city.

 

From his vantage, he found himself recognizing the structures and areas they'd visited earlier that day, conveniently laid out in context with the rest of the city. He decided this destination in particular had been fruitful in familiarizing himself with Santiago's overall layout.

 

Other than that, he had scarce appreciation for this sterilized view.

 

Journeying with a man given to excess such as Lupin, he'd seen larger cities from taller heights, usually while airborne.

 

Jigen and Fujiko seemed to share similar disinterest. The former only spent a brief gander at the outlook, and then simply planted himself by the staircase, arms folded and fingers tapping away the lack of cigarette in hand; the trueness of a soldier, keeping his back guarded, an exit in immediate vicinity, with an outward overall view of the space. The latter occupied herself with a slow walk as she surveyed the panoramic scenery, her tall-standing posture telling the presence of a queen mulling over a territory she hadn't yet decided was worth claiming.

 

Lupin seemed to have completely given up on engaging with them at this point, the lack of noise and sensation of grating nerves nearly startling Goemon into believing he'd snuck away from them once again. But he found him at the south-facing window of the deck, elbows propped over a tower viewer. Lupin was looking at his phone again, expression listless. Perhaps if Goemon could be stealthy in his approach, he would be able to see...

 

"Oh-- Goemon." Lupin slid his phone into his back pocket and flashed a grin before bending to look into the tower viewer. "Think you can spot out Pirque?"

 

"The distance is like to be too vast, even with the scope." He knew this without needing to check.

 

The other's face fell again as he drew back from the viewer. "Well, then."

 

"For what do you seek Pirque?" The safe house was there, and they would return soon enough, after all.

 

"I…." Lupin looked stunned, before turning sheepish. "Y'know, I guess nothing at all. We're all here right now."

 

It was Goemon's turn to be stunned. He thought to Lupin's jovial pushiness during the day. Lupin hadn't been seeking Pirque at all, but….

 

Compelled by a sudden stab of regret in his gut, he asked, "Shall we take another photo?"

 

"Yeah, _no_." The response came out a groan. "It was enough of a hassle getting everyone to pose for the last one."

 

"The two of us, then. Perchance a 'self-taken'?"

 

"What, _you_ wanna take a selfie?" Lupin was openly staring, mouth agape, but the astonishment was quickly giving way to utter glee. "Are you freaking kidding me?"

 

"Allow me." Goemon held out his hand, an idea suddenly dawning upon him.

 

"Oh, will I!" Lupin had already taken out his phone, thumb rapidly sliding the unlock pattern, and eagerly dropped the phone into Goemon's hand. "No backing out of this, got it?"

 

_Now, then…._

 

Straight away, Goemon took note of the number of unread text messages above the messenger icon. Another arrived right as he took the phone in hand. He angled the display from Lupin's view, feigning perplexity and ignorance to make up for the delay as he tapped into the messages as yet another arrived. A screen full of…Russian? No-- could it be Belarusian? _Kashckov?_ Lupin had been maintaining communication with him this entire time?

 

No. Lupin hadn't responded to any of them (recently), as far as Goemon could tell-- he scrolled up and up, and if Lupin had responded at any point, the flood of incoming messages was too much to have properly kept up with. It was unsettling enough that they had even traded contact information, but what was Kashckov even telling Lupin in such copious amounts? In the most recent lines of text, Goemon at least recognized the words "Gran Torre". Was he _here_? Goemon had to quell the rising urge to scour the room for him, drag the louse from hiding--

 

"Handling the tech okay, buddy?"

 

He pressed the central button, clearing it all away just as Lupin leaned over. He was thankful for knowing at least that much of the utilization of the phone. "Ah, I cannot get the camera to appear."

 

"Hopeless as ever," Lupin snickered, tapping the screen. "Right here. You know, the icon that looks like a camera?"

 

Just like that, the screen depicted a reflection of them. Lupin crowded close while Goemon lifted the phone to frame them.

 

"Make a funny face!"

 

"I will do no such thing."

 

"You could at least smile."

 

"I am smiling."

 

"You're impossible is what you are. Come on, get the view behind us!"

 

"Mimic that of the mossy boulder, and be _still_."

 

"I _am_ being still. _You_ 'still' need to smile."

 

"When you are still, I will smile."

 

"See! You really weren't smiling at all! When you smile, I'll be still like ' _that of the mossy boulder_ '--"

 

Lupin was interrupted by the sound of their conversation echoing back from the beginning. The phone screen depicted them shoving one another slightly as they bickered.

 

"You were recording!"

 

"Oh," said Goemon. In truth, he hadn't found much reason to use the camera function in the past, so he wasn't even sure how that happened. He held the phone in place as Lupin navigated the settings.

 

Again they were mirrored on the small display. Lupin crowded close while Goemon lifted the phone to frame them. Lupin showed a toothy grin, slinging an arm over Goemon's neck. Tentatively, Goemon mimicked the gesture, his free hand coming to a rest upon the other's opposite shoulder-- and as Lupin pressed in closer, Goemon thought of the way rabbits would huddle for warmth. Their reflection went still as the photograph took.

 

"One more!" Lupin jostled Goemon with his buoyancy. "A goofy one!"

 

Goemon sighed, pushing down a not entirely irksome urge to mirror his smile. "Unnecessary."

 

"Psh, that attitude is unnecessary," Lupin snickered.

 

"If you two are done," the proximity of Fujiko's voice startled both of them, "I wanted to check out the food markets before heading home."

 

Belarusian flashed across the top of the screen. More messages. This time, Lupin caught sight of them, and plucked his phone back from Goemon's hand. That was fine. Goemon knew enough to know to be watchful.

 

"Pretty sure I bought enough groceries for the next two weeks," Lupin said. "Were you craving something specific?"

 

"It's smart to stay updated on local economies," Fujiko replied curtly. "Just checking that the numbers on my bracelet still hold after the exchange rate."

 

"Come now, my sweet, we both know full well…"

 

Goemon drifted away from them at that point. Thus far, he felt no bizarre disturbances atypical of the high energy brimming in areas of heavy tourism. No one in the crowd lining the windows stood out with the intense malice Goemon could pick out like identifying a face from a mugshot. But if Kashckov was somewhere near, out of all them Jigen would be the one to spot him out; he should be informed to keep a look out. Goemon preferred to keep his own focus on Lupin for the time being, as he seemed to be the only one who could stand to be near him anyway.

 

Strangely, Jigen was already staring intently in their direction. Stranger still, as Goemon approached, he sensed a startling amount of animosity emanating from the gunman. A bitter glower comprised what little of his face wasn't covered defensively from his hat, all the image of a wolf with its teeth bared and hackles raised.

 

Goemon halted, confused, and then annoyed. Of all times for Jigen's volatile mood to stir…. Was it not he who'd scorned Kashckov the most out of all of them? And yet he was always found the least cooperative, perhaps even moreso than Lupin.

 

"Everyone good to go?" the very man asked them then, though Fujiko was already haughtily moving down the stairs.

 

Jigen followed not far behind her, without so much as a word.

 

"Goemon, you're gonna love this next place," Lupin went on, ever undaunted by the blatant shows of vitriol.

 

Goemon gave in, deflated, and accepting the grating dynamic only because Lupin was so inclined. "I will love the food market?"

 

"What? No! What the heck is up with you guys and the food market? We're gonna check out the Metropolitan Park!"

 

Hence the reason for Fujiko's haughtiness, if her initial plans had been curtailed. But nothing had happened in the observation tower to trigger Jigen's renewed surliness. Or so Goemon assumed. Regardless, he had no energy to spend babysitting _two_ grown men. He would uphold priority.

 

When the lift going down filled quickly with people, Goemon pushed his way to Lupin's side to one of the walls. Fujiko and Jigen, erstwhile, willingly separated to their own respective far corners. Beside him, Lupin leaned onto his toes, glancing back and forth between the other two, with the same sort of melancholy that Goemon recognized had become him near the tower viewer.

 

_Seeking Pirque._

 

With the crowded space as an excuse, Goemon pressed his shoulder against Lupin's. He had made an oath. He would remain nearby.

 

When he glanced over to gauge Lupin's expression, he found the barest hint of returned ease, as well as the barest hint of Lupin's weight leaning into him.

 

 

 

 

There was still the matter of the phone. Expressly, _Kashckov_.

 

Lupin chose the car ride to finally form a response to all the messages he'd gotten while they'd been in the tower. Though as they drove, he became more tense, and more engrossed in his and Kashckov's text exchanges. At first, Goemon had assumed that the faster they arrived at the park, the faster he could disengage Lupin from his phone; which was why he opted to help Fujiko and Jigen lock onto a parking space, especially once the two had begun to resort to trading passive aggressive barbs in piling frustration.

 

But all zeal for the destination was gone from Lupin as they left the car.

 

"Uh-- Actually, I'm feeling pretty wiped," Lupin announced at the entryway. "How about we call it a day and head back?"

 

Goemon studied him carefully. There had been an air of weariness lingering about him all day, and yet, strangely that weariness was no longer to be found. In its stead, agitation; his knuckles were clenched tight around his phone. _Kashckov?_ Goemon's hand found zantetsu, and he eyed their surroundings.

 

"The hell we will!" Fujiko immediately rounded on Lupin. "It took us forever to find parking. You're the one who insisted on making this stop."

 

"What's more, it's rush hour, genius," Jigen groused. "Better to wait it out here than stuck in traffic."

 

Goemon was close enough to see the screen of Lupin's phone light up with more notifications. Aware of the onset, Lupin dropped his hand to his side.

 

"Lupin--" Goemon tried to take him by the shoulder to show support, to spur the truth here and now. But he groped empty air.

 

Lupin had skipped on ahead, wagging a finger at them as he passed. "Okay, okay, if you guys wanna explore the park that badly, just say so! Come along, children~ don't stray too far and get lost now."

 

He received two fuming glares as Jigen and Fujiko returned to giving him a wide berth.

 

Goemon was undeterred by the turnabout. He skimmed a few more quick glances at the people present around them, before falling into step with the rest of the group. Most the crowd seemed to be moving opposite of them-- it was nearly dusk, after all. According to a posted map, they were entering via the north entrance, as opposed to the main gate at the south end of the park. That could have been another reason for the sparse amount of tourists here. All the more easier to spot any threats.

 

There was no way to forewarn neither Jigen nor Fujiko about the impending danger without tipping off Lupin. Moreover, there was unfortunate doubt to be had in both Jigen and Fujiko's cooperation in running an interference. He would have to see to Lupin himself.

 

Not too close. If he suspected anything of Goemon, it would be that much more difficult to maintain watch over him.

 

A band of laughing young women passed them, racing one another to an offshoot of the main path. A sign at the fork read "Estación Oasis", pointing in the direction the girls had taken to. Fujiko was looking overhead, and when Goemon followed her gaze, he spied a red cable car crossing the sky above them, towed along by the black lines that stretched high above the park, beyond where he could see past the trees enclosing the walkway.

 

Goemon frowned, returning his sight to Lupin. Something was certainly afoul if the latter hadn't jumped at the very first extravagant attraction in vicinity. Instead, Lupin leisurely followed the curve of the main path. He didn't even pause at the next fork, leading the way to a wooden gateway further along the trail. He turned back to wave briefly, ushering them closer. A wood sign just above the brush of a planting of purple-flowered shrubs read "Jardin Japones", and with a small ache of homesickness in his chest, Goemon realized the truth of Lupin's earlier claim that he would enjoy the park.

 

Upon entering, however, it was immediately apparent how much this garden fell short of its claim.

 

The wooden stoop of the gateway creaked beneath him as he descended the steps. A small, murky pond contoured the quaint plotting of the garden against hillside. The stationary waterwheel heading said pond didn't even touch the water level.Goemon nearly deemed it a mockery of Japanese authenticity. Very nearly.

 

His judgment softened at the sight of a tourou at the water's edge. He walked along the stepping stone path at the pond's side. Another tourou was placed in a grass area, by a collection of stone kami that Jigen stopped to regard. At the far end of the garden, an alcove was fenced off by short posts of bamboo. Fujiko had gone to stand under the bare rotunda structure-- the curved eaves of which met at a pointed center, typical of eastern architecture.

 

It was enough.

 

All fell quiet, taken by the serenity of the landscaping. It was easy to forget, with how much more easily they assimilated to western culture, but his colleagues were Japanese as he was. Goemon wondered if Lupin ever yearned for France in the same way. He turned to ask, only catch the sight of the aforementioned man darting out of view and beyond a patch of bushes.

 

Goemon whirled around to alert Jigen and Fujiko--

 

But both were _gone_ , as if they too had seized a chance to steal away. Irritation chafed upon his final nerve. Were they so vindictive?

 

…So be it.

 

Goemon allowed no more time to slip. He bolted in the direction he'd seen Lupin take, stopping short of glimpsing the barest flashes of the red jacket beyond the flush of foliage. Already he was artfully meandering as a precaution, darting in a perplexing array of directions, pausing every so often to check behind him and listen for any following footfall. But Goemon had slipped a few paces ahead, still hidden in the span of greenery, and mindful of cushioning enough distance between them. He couldn't afford to turn this into a chase. Lupin was too clever, and there were too many places to lose track of him.

 

_Rabbit, indeed._

 

Then Goemon would do best to emulate a stalking mountain lion! He increased his pace, but went aslant, following in broadside of Lupin's general path, advancing in parallel with the wider sense of direction. As much as he kept his way crooked, there was still a sense of _forward_ that he pushed upon.

 

Goemon crouched low and tucked through the small gaps in the grove to minimize rustling the shrubs about him, moving only when Lupin moved, and stopping when he stopped. His efforts successfully avoided him detection. Even better when he found that the land begun to tilt uphill as they continued, and granted a higher ground to spectate from.

 

He'd barely gone a few steps before he noticed Lupin had froze completely in his tracks, eyes fixated on something up ahead.

 

A lone white-suited figure, walking along the path from the opposite direction.

 

_Kashckov._

 

Goemon's thumb loosed zantetsu from its scabbard, and he backtracked nearer to Lupin's flank. He eased his opposite hand over the hilt, and waited, coiled for the strike.

 

Lupin spoke first, calling Kashckov's attention-- _Belarusian once again_ \-- and the tone he used was so foreign that Goemon nearly didn't recognize his voice. Soft, startlingly gentle (but not without a press of anxiety). His entire demeanor had changed, no longer the devil-may-care persona attributed to the notorious thief, and Goemon might have mistook him for a different man. Overall, he sounded pained. Goemon was put all the more on guard.

 

Kashckov, on the other end, postured enough lax sureness for the both of them. His steps were light, gliding, mimicking the cadence of his voice as he spoke over Lupin, and went on to collapse the distance between them even after Lupin had stopped walking. He had a disarming way about him-- though it could have been the familiarity between him and Lupin that cast such an illusion-- leaned in like he belonged at least that close, and Lupin regarding him like he was expected even closer.

 

Their voices lowered.

 

Suddenly, Goemon was seized by a cold inkling that _he_ was the intruder. He shook free of the notion hastily to focus, staying his drawing hand as Kashckov moved again.

 

Hands were upon Lupin's neck. Too slow to suggest an intent to harm, to warrant Goemon to rush in upon Lupin's defense, but _that_ was even more unsettling than if he'd had an indisputable reason to interfere. Kashckov smiled as he made a remark, looking as if he'd found something satisfactory. Then his hands trailed from Lupin's neck, one to the latter's face, and the other down his back. Lupin murmured something, and that was the last sound he made before lips met.

 

Goemon turned away with a flustered return of self-awareness.

 

This…was not for him to entertain.

 

But-- was Lupin not going to fight? Did he…want…? Goemon clasped zantetsu back into place, and began to move out, a sensation like a jagged stone turning over in his gut.

 

He heard Kashckov speak again-- a low, dark-tinted murmur that he pushed angrily from his mind as he retreated. But it was Lupin's response that rooted his next step. Too far was Goemon to have heard the words even if they hadn't been in a language unknown to him, but the manner in which they were spoken-- hollowed, as if all the value that might've been harbored there had already gotten cleaved out and what was left were old fruitless echoes.

 

 _"Guys-- stand down," Lupin slurred to them as he sagged against the man in white._ The image lit up in Goemon's mind, setting ablaze all the reasons he had followed Lupin in the first place. _"Everything's fine."_

 

Goemon was upon them in the span of a single, eruptive pulse.

 

He leapt high, zantetsu bared like an opened jaw, prime to mangle Kashckov to ribbons, and now clamping shut. But instead of Kashckov, the edge disappeared into a red sleeve-- Lupin had shoved Kashckov away from the assail. Goemon's breath hitched and he halted mid-swing and withdrew the blade quickly, all before his feet even touched ground.

 

"Goemon…!" Lupin gasped, going pale at the sight of him, never mind that his arm was nearly chopped off.

 

Goemon took the other's wrist, turning it over carefully. No blood. He'd merely left a slice in the jacket, and in the shirt underneath. But relief would have been premature when the true threat was still present. Goemon lifted his eyes from Lupin's forearm, to meet Kashckov's gaze.

 

Kashckov gave a short chuckle, looking from Goemon to Lupin and back again. He said something Goemon couldn't understand. But it was said _while_ staring him in the eye.

 

Knowing a challenge when facing one, Goemon brandished zantetsu with a scowl.

 

" _Goemon_ ," Lupin said again, this time the one to reach for him. His hands were shaking, sweating-- otherwise, Goemon might have ignored him. Lupin chose English as a compromise as he faced Kashckov. "Iosif. You have to stay away from them. That was part of this whole deal." His gaze returned to Goemon, both hands clutching his blade arm. "Hear that? We had an agreement, alright?"

 

"Let him meet zantetsu's thirst," Goemon insisted in Japanese, calm and cold, "should he be so eager."

 

Kashckov was laughing again. He called out to Lupin, and he too refused English. And his tone changed as he spoke, slipping from amusement into a sharp vitriol that in turn further raised Goemon's nerve.

 

Lupin's hands fell away from Goemon. Instead they were held up, palms towards Kashckov-- a motion of surrender-- as he responded to Kashckov with an odd, soothing, sweet tone. Lulling the temper of an irate beast.

 

Goemon maintained stance; Lupin did not speak for him, or control him for that matter. If Lupin was so determined to act alone, then Goemon could do as he pleased as well.

 

But before he could move on that thought, Lupin was stepping in his way, between him and the beast.

 

"So, fancy running into you here," Lupin chortled, finally speaking in Japanese again, and finally composed into a semblance of his usual bravado. "Let me guess: you got lost looking for the bathroom, too?"

 

Goemon would never understand his ill-timed humor. He didn't take watch off Kashckov past Lupin's shoulder. "Lupin, we can strike him down, here and now. He cannot possibly thwart us both."

 

"Hey, listen. Thank you. For today. For not being as mad as Jigen and Fujiko."

 

"Do _not_ dismiss me," Goemon snapped, ready to prove that he could be mad as Jigen and Fujiko. Madder still, even.

 

"Come on, man. This is personal. Like... _really_ personal." Lupin's eyes closed briefly, and when they opened, they were uncharacteristically _sad_. "You get that, right? Do me a solid. Sit this one out."

 

" _Never_." It was unthinkable. Every fibre linked to Goemon's very core was screaming not to leave Lupin to this dastardly man. "There are personal matters, and then there are matters better handled in unison-- alongside your comrades in arms!"

 

Better might his point be received had Jigen and Fujiko been there as well. Goemon didn't dare mention that they had made themselves scarce, or at all remind him how all three of them had been unabashedly unwilling to partake in Lupin's sightseeing excursion-- anything that could have encouraged Lupin's decision to distance himself from them.

 

Kashckov sung out a stream of words, almost melodic, but there was scrape to them.

 

Lupin responded over his shoulder, quieter, more resigned than outwardly distressed, although the sound unsettled Goemon just the same.

 

Again Kashckov intoned smoothly, almost bored, if his voice had not come more clipped and aggressive this time.

 

Lupin winced, turning around as he answered-- but his feet were stepping away too.

 

Goemon lunged out, not waiting for Lupin to finish his sentence. His hand curled over the back of Lupin's neck, pulled him close, so desperate was the motion that their foreheads bumped together, and so was the squall in Goemon's chest that he didn't care so long as he captured Lupin's full attention.

 

"You are not _his_ ," Goemon said, hoping the implication that hung in the shadow of the statement was enough to imprint long after the moment had passed.

 

Lupin gaped at him, eyes wide in astonishment, and this slowly ebbed to a glow that perpetuated the pull Goemon felt.

 

_You are--_

 

His own attention seized, Goemon missed Kashckov drawing a pistol from his jacket. But he glimpsed the shine of light hitching on gunmetal, the loathing contortions of Kashckov's features.

 

Two rounds of fire discharged.

 

They both caught zantetsu's slanted edge-- two rounds that otherwise would have been lodged in Lupin's back had Goemon not yanked the other aside.

 

Goemon needed no further precursors. He advanced, flying across the short grass, zantetsu paving the headwind from his path.

 

He winded sideways as three more rounds flew, and zantetsu whipped readily through the next wave of fire. Kashckov meanwhile was trying to maintain distance, the resentment plain on his face as he regarded Goemon's easy feints. Goemon could have laughed in his face-- closer, and he just might have to give to that temptation. He had expected more from this encounter. But Kashckov's firearm competence fell easily below Jigen's laziest sparring. Once the current ammo cartridge drained, Kashckov would have had no time to reload before Goemon was upon him.

 

"Goemon, _wait_ , stay back!" Lupin was shouting, barely having picked himself up the short time.

 

He would not.

 

He called to mind Kashckov's wrongdoings with each consequent slug that flew at him, dispelled each one evenly with each cleave of zantetsu.

 

The memory of Lupin drowning in his own saliva in the hotel room-- _cut_. Lupin silent and motionless in the backseat of the fiat, all the opposite of where and how he was intended to be-- _cut_. Lupin staring listlessly from the bed in Fujiko's safe room-- _cut._ Lupin upon his lap in Fujiko's car, easily mistaken for dead had Goemon not kept his fingertips against the pulse point of his throat-- Lupin unconscious and groaning his pain as he sweated the toxins in his system-- Lupin fallen down in the shower, flinching from Goemon's touch-- the worthless whole fell wayside to zantetsu's purge.

 

It wasn't just Lupin's esteem weighting the power behind his swings. Pushing were Fujiko's tears that she tried to muffle against pillows and sheets, that she attempted to cover up with make-up. Pulling was Jigen's obstinate silence, hiding his ruptured grief with disproportionate belligerence. All of it a culminated tide crashing for Kashckov's gullet.

 

Lupin shouted at Kashckov next, voice cracked from the plea there-- "Iosif!" -- a flurry of Belarusian-- " _Iosif_!"

 

The final several rounds of the clip were not even in Goemon's trajectory. He had to bite down a taunt as he reared back his blade, fevered for saccharine justice….

 

That was before he heard the shout of pain behind him, realized that the rounds had not been meant for him. Goemon's pulse lapsed from the spike of alarm blaring throughout his senses.

 

He heard dead weight drop onto the grass.

 

_Lupin--!_

 

Kashckov sighed, shaking his head. He yelled something passively, to Lupin-- "-- _Arsène_."-- with a shrug.

 

Goemon could only stare.

 

"Looks like you lose, samurai," Kashckov deigned to tell Goemon in English. He flashed his teeth, and then jeered, " _Sayonara_."

 

He holstered his weapon and pocketed his hands, turned his back and walked away. Without so much a second glance.

 

Goemon's knees were stuck, feet as if they were cement-weighted, as he watched his enemy leave so casually, as dread took him in a flood of gutwrenched disbelief. Zantetsu shrieked silently into the sky, unfulfilled, and Goemon's hands trembled as he muffled it in its sheath. He ripped himself out of stance and whirled around, gracelessly scrambling to the ground.

 

"Lupin!"

 

The latter was collapsed on his back, choking on partial pockets of air, not breathing properly, yet still _alive_. Goemon took him in his arms.

 

"G--mn--," Lupin gagged, "-- _fine_ \--"

 

"Be still," Goemon whispered harshly. He ripped open Lupin's dress shirt to assess the damage…

 

…and found a bulletproof vest.

 

The three bullets were lodged in the packed fabric. None of their group had ever resorted to the like before. Despite the consistent assuage of bullets, all of them had preferred mobility over armored defense, perhaps cockily trusting in their own skills. It normally worked to their advantage, but Goemon refrained from questioning Lupin's precaution in this case.

 

"See?" Lupin rasped dazedly, drool leaking from his lips. "Hngh...handled…."

 

Before Goemon could find any true ease, something else caught his eye then: a necklace around Lupin's neck. Silver, glittering metalwork-- immaculate diamonds and abyssal-inked sapphires-- all of it unmistakable. …Blaue Blume.

 

He had seen the necklace before, in the dimness of an alleyway, under the car's dome light, between Lupin's fingers as he clutched it in his sleep. But in the daylight, he realized the sapphires were the exact shade of Kashckov's eyes. Like he was facing Kashckov himself once again. Encircled around Lupin's throat, it may as well have been a claiming.

 

Or a _collar_.

 

After Goemon had tried to denounce Kashckov's ownership, there proof of it was in plain sight, willingly worn.

 

There seemed to be no end to the irony.

 

Lupin let out a stifled groan, in obvious pain.

 

Goemon had naught to say. And with naught else to do, he unzipped the vest, ignoring the aggravating way the necklace shined light in his eyes as the vest bumped it aside.

 

The impact sites underneath were all boasting of size, unsightly blooms of red, green, and yellow already settled and welting. Dips in the flesh at the center of these bruises were apparent where the brunt of force had been the worse. Goemon prodded his fingers against them.

 

Lupin yelped and cringed under his touch, but Goemon couldn't find any sympathy for it. Especially when he found no broken ribs. Just flesh-deep blemishes, and the wind knocked out of him. Luck seemed to favor Lupin the Third. Begrudgingly, Goemon considered the idea that it all would have turned out fine, had he never followed him in the first place.

 

Jigen and Fujiko had both come to know Lupin before him, and perhaps they had a better grasp on the situation after all in leaving him to his own devices. In leaving him to Kashckov. Letting it sort itself out. Allowing Lupin privacy in his personal matters. Had Goemon misread the situation after all? And what else had he misread? He had come to Lupin's defense, but had been the one defended in the end.

 

"Oh, mother _fuck_ \-- the rabbit thing just hit me," Lupin giggled suddenly, trembling from the effort. "J-jesus christ, _Goemon_ \--"

 

"Lupin, get ahold of yourself-- your injuries--"

 

Lupin gasped out, full of joy, " _Hare_ brained, right?"

 

He stared at Goemon with unabashed pride as the latent pun hung, cracked at long last, between them.

 

Just like that, the necklace lost all worth-- if momentarily. There existed something deeper than that of a material piece of ownership. Something that needed not to be worn, for it was carried else ways. The ill-advised, foolhardy, _harebrained_ rabbit had escaped from its pen, but had it not returned home? Wasn't it that it never forgot where its home was? Always seeking Pirque.

 

Lupin beamed at him, grinning toothy and wide.

 

Goemon angled his own incessantly reactive smile towards the sky, out of the other's view. "You are normally quicker on the uptake."

 

More shudders as Lupin's body strained to laugh. Goemon hoisted him, so that he was sitting upright, propped against his chest.

 

"Lupin."

 

He curled a hand over the hairline of Lupin's forehead, pushed the latter's head back gently onto his shoulder to allow the throat to elongate and relax. His other hand found the spasms of Lupin's diaphragm, covering the worry of discolor littered there, and rested.

 

"Breathe."


End file.
